What Can You Have Left To Do?,

Baring in mind that we booked the wedding back in January, a few people have been asking me if everything is ready and everything is done and I would love to be the sort of super organised person that could say, yes, all that's left to do is pack, but sadly that is not the case.

First off, my future husband still needs a new shirt and a new pair of shoes to match his suit. I'm trying not to sweat the small stuff, but this doesn't really feel too small! 

I'm still working on getting a few toys sorted for the playpen for little man, partly so he has somewhere to chill out and somewhere to stop himself from getting bored.

As if that was not enough I'm still working on a couple of little art projects for the wedding day and trying to find the time to do them is a little testing, but hopefully there is just enough time to get those done, and then it will be packing everything into the cars and getting everything from our house to the venue which feels like it might be a bit of a trauma.

It doesn't help that I keep feeling like I have hit a wall of exhaustion and still have a little boy to look after, and the little scamp is getting far more adventurous and mobile.

So as we head into the weekend and the number of weeks until the wedding ticks down by another one, I'm going to keep trying to find the time to get everything sorted and finished whilst also juggling little man and keeping him smiling!

So What Was It This Time,

For once, the reason I didn't get this posted on my own sort of schedule wasn't because of my son. Don't get me wrong, he's still a little tyke, skipping naps or having ten minutes and being "well rested" or not liking being put down for 30 seconds so I can pee or make food (I know neither of those two things are a 30 second job but his limit is 30 seconds before you know he's upset about not being the focus of attention, but he's a baby and that's what happens...)

Honestly the reason I've not posted is because I couldn't figure out what to write and it's not because my mind has gone blank, or because I've run out of things to say about the wedding or anything like that, but because I have always been mindful about what I do post and I try not to post any sort of drama which will act like a milk frother and just whip everything up worse and make my life even more hectic. Mainly because I don't have the time or the energy for the fall out. 

Recently, I've been upset by a few things that certain people have done and honestly it has taken far too much of my already limited time and vastly limited energy to either try and find a way to not care about it, or to deal with it. And let's be real, there are some situations which you can't deal with. There is no solution to them because the other people involved will never see things from your side. I'd love to say that that is fine, but honestly, it's frustrating and even more so when people complain about being in the middle, which is right where they have sat themselves. I realise this probably seems like vague shitposting and if I was reading it I would be wanting someone to do a Boston and throw all of the tea in the water, but I'm not going to do that, because it's a waste of time and because the idea of adding fuel to the fire when it's so close to my wedding is not actually an attractive prospect.

Inevitably, I don't know if people are intentionally starting drama right near the wedding to wind me up, to try and wind my future husband up, or just because they're too oblivious to realise it's a real dick move to put extra stress onto people that close to their wedding, but I'm honestly so done with it, and I've already been on a bit of a blocking binge for people who are just sapping my energy at the moment and I won't apologise for it. 

With the wedding getting closer one of the things on my list was to try and queue up a few blogs to give me time to finish the bits and pieces I need to and also for the time that our honeymoon should/may be, but honestly, I may need to sacrifice that one in order to stick to getting everything for the wedding done and everything for daily life done, too. Sorry and all that, but we'll just have to see what happens. 

That Which We Call A Hen Do...,

 Right, I've seen these called Hen Dos for years and I've seen American's call them bachelorette parties for years, too, but I saw it referred to as Stags and Does the other day and I don't know where that's from but it just doesn't sit right with me, to be quite honest. I don't know what it is, but I heard it and my only thought was, ew, no thanks. 

My image of a hen party has always been the 'classic' thing of Blackpool, getting drunk, wearing plaid skirts with plastic bottoms glued on (because I saw them in Blackpool once) and again it was one of those things that was like, yeah... no thanks, it's not for me. My future husband and I did consider just renting an Airbnb somewhere, having a few drinks with close friends and a bit of a games night but when we wrote out a list of people we would like to invite it started to get a little bit crazy and then get away from the idea of it being just a holiday of friends and more into typical stag or hen parties which are banned from some big houses because of the damage that previous drunken parties have done. The bigger it got, the more it felt like a mini wedding party before the wedding or we worried that there would be people we were inviting out of obligation rather than a desire for them to be there and so that went out of the window. I had thought before a spa day with just my mum or something might be nice, but even that didn't feel quite right, so it was back to the drawing board again. 

In the end I thought I would do the same thing as we have done for the wedding and take an approach of it's my party and I'm going to do what I want. 

One thing I did realise with it was that my ability to organise is shocking, and my ability to understand dates has got worse since having my son because I don't need to know what day or date it is most of the time, so there were a few people that I realised last minute that had I sat down and thought about it properly, I would have invited, but inviting people on the day of felt like an afterthought, which it wasn't but I think I've found the reason that the hen do is organised by your maid of honour or bridesmaids and it's because splitting focus between the wedding and the hen means you kind of do everything wrong.

I had desperately wanted to go to a certain Italian restaurant in Manchester, but when I came to book it, getting a table before 9pm wasn't possible, and we were meeting up earlier than that so I wasn't really up for going out for drinks and then going there because it was a group of neurodivergent friends and I, and we can get loud without realising it when we're sober, and I didn't want to interrupt other people's dinners, especially not there and especially not when the place was having a busy night, so instead I chose an Indian place which I love and got to introduce my super foodie friend to it. That never happens! There's also something very apt about it being a hen night and chaat bombs, because giving people warnings that they will go everywhere if you bite them. How is it that EVERY TIME someone does not heed the warning? So the night started with yoghurt everywhere and went from there. 

It wasn't a traditional thing in any way shape or form, because it was me and my male friends, I hated the white dress I had been planning on wearing so grabbed something black instead (and my green Doc Martens, so got to feel so like myself that it was incredible), and instead of doing the somewhat popular activity, food, drowning your liver in your tipple of choice we started with drinking at dinner and it all escalated from there. The lads hadn't known each other at the start of the night, but one of the great things is that they will now know each other at the wedding and that makes me feel a lot calmer, because people coming on their own who don't know anyone else there makes me worry. I don't want anyone to feel left out during the wedding, so it's good that they've got someone they vaguely know and once got drunk with.

It's also not lost on me that the people who were able to make it are those who don't have children, and those who couldn't make it have, because I know that had it been someone else's night and my son was ill, or he'd been a live wire for the day and I was exhausted, I wouldn't have made it either, and even though I do bring him up in conversation quite a bit, it was nice that the hen do wasn't completely about being his mum.

The night ended with my very soon to be husband picking up three of us and driving us home whilst I was insufferably drunk, and putting up with me as he does so well, and only partly because I've promised to do the same for him after his stag do.

I don't know whether it's that the hen do has happened or by sheer proximity, but everything for the wedding is feeling a lot more real now and whilst I love that, it is making me very nervous about things arriving on time or getting everything packed and to the venue, getting last things like hair cuts and nails done (why am I suddenly a person who cares about getting my nails done!) and I have genuinely considered starting to pack suitcases of bits we need but I keep telling myself that that is a bit neurotic, but I probably won't be able to hold off that long because it's getting very close now. 

I'm sure that a few people who have read this blog for a while will be glad when the wedding stuff goes off, but when it's so close and it's such a big thing in your life, it's obviously something you're going to talk about a lot of the time, and even when I don't, people ask.

I May Have Mentioned This Before,

 But I'm tired and I'm trying so let's just go with it.

One of the "fun" things about getting married is that it changes the way that you register the birth or births of any future children. When our son was born it was assumed that I was his mother, but because my partner and I weren't married at the time, until we went and formally registered his birth and put my partner's name on the birth certificate, he didn't have any legal parental responsibility for him. How that would have worked had something gone wrong I don't really know, but thankfully one of the things that happens following a marriage is that a child is assumed to belong to both the birthing parent and their spouse. (As far as I am aware it is the same for non-binary or same sex couples.)

I'm just going to note that I'm saying I was assumed to be his mother because there are a few legal sticky bits if there's been surrogacy involved or any mix ups at fertility clinics, though I believe they are thankfully very few and far between!

Naturally, that only impacts any future children we have as opposed to the little guy we have now, so what happens with him? Well, we have to re-register his birth as a child of our marriage. Before you say, well he's not, I know. Before you say it's stupid, I know, it is. But it is a legal requirement and what gets even more ridiculous is that it's not even because he's under a certain age. No matter - as I understand it - the age of the child (even if they're an adult) their birth has to be re-registered. And yes, legally you have to do it, even though there is no specific timeline on which you have to do it. (Or a penalty for not doing, as far as I understand.)

And as with a lot of things, I had a bit of an emotional reaction to this, because it feels a bit like re-writing history as though I'm embarrassed that my partner and I weren't married at the time that we had my son and as though that means something about my son. I know in the past it has and there have been some names which people use to describe children born outside of a marriage, and the reason is - at least in part - the inheritance law which was why this appointment existed, but the really stupid thing is, that has been changed! But the marriage law or the registration part wasn't and I don't understand why. To me, it seems like it's just giving the registry office something more to do, as though they're not actually busy (which they are) and stopping these appointments, which are done for free, would free up time to do other things like marriage notice appointments (which are paid for) or marriages (which are paid for) or register births. When we registered little man's birth we registered him in the local authority he was born in (which you have to) and we were able to do that when he was 3 days old, but in the one we live in, you couldn't get an appointment for a few weeks, and there are certain things you need the birth certificate to do, like open a bank account or get a passport, so it seems crazy to have to offer needless appointments which take time away from very important ones!

Even if you're not a big believer in marriage or it's not something you are particularly fussed about, there are things which make it sensible, like thinking about inheritance if something happened to one of you, or for ensuring that if something bad happens, you are the legal next of kin. I realise that all seems to be for planning "if something bad happens" but in those situations, marriage becomes important and not being married is just another stress on top of an already stressful situation. For some, it's the protection of if you split, assets are divided and there is the ability to have the situation looked at from the outside, because if there are kids involved, one of you likely had to pause your career in order to look after them, even if it was for a short time, and financial contributions wouldn't look 50/50, but that's not all there is to family life. 

I think this went in a different direction than I was originally intending, but that happens when you write a blog in two halves. 

Insomnia Hits Different Now,

Before I got pregnant - God, that seems like such a long time ago now - I used to get really aggravated when people would tell me that I didn't know what tired was because I wasn't and never had been a parent. It honestly bugged the hell out of me. Now that I am a parent, it still bugs the hell out of me. 

Here's the thing. I've had sleep issues for a long time and when I was writing over one of the summers after I was in college, I got into this fabulous routine where I was going to sleep around 2am and getting up around 10am and I was wildly more functional as a person than I have been in a long time. All of a sudden I was getting enough sleep and getting through sleep cycles so I actually felt rested and it was just glorious, but it's a sleep pattern that doesn't fit in with work or with a lot of things and it certainly doesn't fit in with my son, partly because he is still working on the idea of a sleep routine...

Insomnia hits differently now because I used to give myself the permission to sleep more when I could, and I don't really get to do that as much anymore because my son doesn't always love naps and sometimes by the time he gets down for a nap I'm too awake to also have a nap, but also because the point where it becomes a problem and the point where I can do something about it have swapped now. If I realise I'm hitting the point of exhaustion where I need a solid sleep, I need to take some meds to help me sleep before about 10pm, but most of the time I don't figure out that I'm actually struggling until about 1am and then it's too late to be able to do anything, because the type of meds that help me sleep can leave me slightlu incapacitated which isn't an option when I'm the only adult who will be in the house for a few hours with my son and it's also a time when he is likely to be awake and need attention.

People told me that you find a new reserve of energy and you're able to get through the day and unless I'm missing something or that doesn't kick in until you go back to work, it's not happened unfortunately, and I'm worried that it won't, but I guess I will have to wait to find out... 

My Latest Obsession,

Well, one of.

We have a "decent sized" garden, and in that "decent sized" garden, we have a number of fruit trees, and when we moved in last year the fruit hadn't been picked or collected from the ground and so there was a massive slippery carpet of rotting apples which made it very difficult for the mobility challenged being developing her own centre of gravity due to how big she was (me...) to get around the garden or to the bottom of it, which is sad because the river is at the bottom and I like the river and I missed it.

In order to address the issue of the apples, which I worried would attract floods of rats (they didn't) I wanted a composter because our lovely council are one of these that have decided you need to pay extra for a garden waste collection and it wound me up so I said no (in hindsight, massively stupid decision.) So I bought a composter and my dad dug up a patch of grass so it could go onto the bare earth, and then a rat (only one, not the armies of them I had imagined) got into it, so we dug down, pressed it into the ground a bit and then the rat got in again, and I got annoyed... but we collected a reasonably large number of apples more than once - like a couple of washing baskets full of apples on at least three occasions - and tossed them in before realising that whole apples in a composter don't rot down amazingly well, so it's like they're sitting there and waiting for the rats, so we got an apple scratter an put it on the end of my partners SDS drill. For the uninitiated, we got a drill bit with a propeller like blade on it and put it onto my future husband's REALLY BIG drill, and we minced those rotting apples like they were going to become the worst cider ever invented. And then we chucked them back into the composter with a bunch of shredded paper and cardboard and other things which get classed as "brown" no matter what colour they are. And then it was winter so nothing much composts but apple season was over and we couldn't get everything off the floor but it gave the birds something to eat, and the rodents something to eat which gave the birds something to do... And it gave the cats something else to do other than trying to get the birds. 

As the windfall apples started to come down this year (and the pear and the blackberries and the elderberries and before this gets too romantic sounding, the nettles, the thistles and all of the other weeds...) I looked at that composter and thought, well, that's crap. Let's try something else.

That bin collection I never wanted to pay for, well, we have two of the bins going spare, so why not start a composter in one of those. Because my partner said no. But then I found a great video about how you can produce compost in a wheelie bin in 30 days so I told him I was doing it and it was fine because if or when we decided to use the bin, it wouldn't take too long to clear it out. Except it's not bloody working. 

I was aiming to get it going to a good, hot composter and then I could chuck all of my seeded weeds in there and cook them and it would have been great, wouldn't it, except I did basically everything right like leaving space for ventilation - I even propped the lid open for a few hours a day to get oxygen into it, I tore up cardboard and was careful to only add the non-plasticy cardboard in, and I didn't dump all the wood ash into it - I didn't put any in - and I mixed the green and brown stuff and I added an accelerator and it is not moving. At all. I even turn it. I don't do it every day (to help it build the heat) but I turn it, I poke it, I get oxygen right into it and keep it the right level of moist and it's just not playing ball. 

So I ask my partner to get me the water butt from behind the garage so I can check why it's empty (spoiler alert: it was cracked, which should have been expected) and then he says, why don't you make that a composter? And I say because the tap is broken and he looks at me like my label has dropped off because he doesn't give a shit about compost. And then I say, I could make it into a womery, and then it's too late because I've ordered the worms and we'll just see how that goes, right? Well, first problem, yeah, the tap is broken and in trying to remove it, we broke it worse and I then couldn't find the new tap I bought so worry that the worms, who hadn't arrived yet, would try and escape through the hole. So partner plugs the hole where the tap was. There's still the crack on the bottom so we need to place this carefully, but we manage, and then it's ah, what if the "worm tea" - not edible or drinkable, but it feeds your soil - doesn't drain quickly through the crack? No worries, I've layered ticks and leaves at the bottom and it's letting the oxygen in, too. Plus there is a big hole in the lid where the gutter used to go in... 

Then the worms arrive. So they're in situ and I'm hoping for the best, but when I went out today to check on them, one was near the top of the bin and I can't see any more of them... And then I emptied one of the hoovers into it because it's full of dog hair and a spider from the nursery which somehow survived being vacuumed up and has made clear that the wormery now belongs to it so I'm not sticking my hand in there, gloved or otherwise, to dig around and see if they're just hiding... But I'm also now worried because the hole in the top which is great for ventilation or for just dropping bits and pieces through will also let in a lot of rain and let the cold in when the weather turns, so now I'm wondering if I should attach a piece of gutter pipe with either a corner or a U shape on the top to stop the rain getting in... Before I do that though, I want proof of life on the little wrigglers and more than just the one of them.

It may be that I just haven't got the patience and I need to wait for the good bacteria and the rest of the food chain to move in, but I also kind of wanted rolling composters, but they're expensive, or a biodigester, but that's silly, and I do wonder if I need to get some cow or horse manure to get it started like you do with biodigesters, but I think they do anaerobic no aerobic breakdown which isn't what I'm going for, because it stinks, so not sure if that would help. Honestly, I've been tempted by an entire zoo of animals, but it's mainly to keep on top of the bloody garden waste. 

It's a project. We always knew it was a project and it's just proving that it is.

Worries Of An Allergy Mum,

OK, so I can completely understand how this might come across as being one of those posts that could be，you know, privileged, or tone deaf, but I don't think that it is even if it might come across that way.

This is about something which really bugs me, but in order to get into it I need to give a little bit of context. My son was diagnosed with CMPA which stands for Cow's Milk Protein Allergy. It's not hugely uncommon and it's not life threatening, and he's actually really lucky in that his skin symptoms have been pretty mild and sporadic and even his gastric symptoms which have been tough for him and for me and for his dad haven't been anything like as bad as they could have been. Thankfully we've not had any 'raspberry jam' type nappies or issues where we thought there was bleeding going on, and I'm glad of that because I think I would panic so much at something like that, because I've panicked enough with the symptoms he did have, partly because knowing how to manage them has been just a case of trying anything and continuously trying our best, but knowing that our best isn't fixing the issue and sometimes doing our best has been the hardest thing we could do.

We're finally at the point where we have a diagnosis and because of that we've been referred to the allergy clinic, we've been advised that we'll go through a process called The Milk Ladder and we have been prescribed a hypoallergenic milk which is "hydrolysed"; I'm not going to pretend that I know what that means, but Google says it's a substance that has been broken down with either water, enzymes or acid, so I guess the protein which he can't digest has been treated to make it so he doesn't react to it, or to help his body learn to process it.

We went through a process to get the diagnosis which included a two week "exclusion" period, so he wasn't having any dairy and he was on one version of the milk and when he was still having issues afterwards he was put onto a second version. So there's Aptamil Pepti 1, which is for babies who aren't weaning yet and Pepti 2 which is for babies who are weaning. I believe there's also a junior version which is for very small babies or premies and that is just scary as anything to me. Premie babies and their parents are going through enough without a dairy allergy or intolerance considering that milk is the only food babies have for the first few months of their lives! There are a bunch of others - SMA do one, there's something called Nutromigen - but what our doctor tends to prescribe, as I understand it, is Apatmil. 

Obviously, our situation is not unique and a lot of babies get diagnosed with CMPA or CMPI (Cow's Milk Protein Allergy or Cow's Milk Protein Intolerance - not sure what the difference is or if there really is one...) and I know some people see a difference if they move over to Kendamil Goat Milk, but we've used one lot of Kendamil before and bubs did not get along with it at all, and honestly, it is expensive as hell. Obviously if it was for the best for my son I would pay it, but our health visitor and doctor advised the route that we're currently on. I should also say, that's absolutely zero hate on Kendamil. I think they're an awesome brand and I'm pretty sure they're the closest to a local brand we could get for baby formula, but things like scale of production mean goat's milk is always more expensive than cow's and it's no different when it comes to formula. 

So, Pepti milk, on prescription. Sounds great, right? Well, it is, but it changes the game completely not in terms of some things - it's made the same way, you don't need extra equipment etc - but in others, because I like Costco and other bulk buy types of ideas, not just from the perspective of saving money but also in terms of the security. There is a security which comes from having multiples weeks of months worth of formula in the house instead of still at the shop.

In just the time of my pregnancy and the time my son has been alive we've experienced formula shortages which weren't on the scale of that which was experienced through COVID but enough to make parents feel a sort of food insecurity regarding their baby's milk, and there have been a number of recalls across multiple brands for contamination of milk with a bacteria which made several babies rather ill. Their food Made. Them. Ill. As a parent, you're going to blame yourself because you chose the brand of food and you gave them that bottle, but even if you didn't buy any of the affected batches, that food gets recalled and then there is a scarcity of it. When you get a baby onto a formula, you don't keep changing it without a reason, so to not be able to get your brand or your line of product - like the hungry baby or the comfort milk instead of the standard - is an issue, so when it's in stock, you buy a couple. When you go to the shops, you grab a can or two to put to the back of the fridge so that whatever happens, you have some to spare. COVID kind of came out of nowhere, or at least it escalated pretty damn quickly and one of the things which was massively interrupted (though maybe more for Americans, I don't know, I didn't have a baby at the time) was baby formula production and so there was a shortage. We used to keep at least a full 

Costco pack of formula ahead, so 3 700g cans, which was enough for about 18 days when he stopped having it, and we would be working through a pack of the ready made bottles because if we were out of the house it was just easier. When you're on prescription milk, you can't really do that. 

With a prescription, if you need it earlier than expected it can feel like you're having to explain yourself as to why. When I ordered our last lot I told the receptionist that our son had been drinking extra bottles because of the heat and he wouldn't drink water. It's true, but it was also because he was as angry as a baby can be that we were changing his bottle schedule from what he was used to of five bottles at seven ounces a bottle per day to four bottles a day at eight ounces a time. So I tried something different of doing two eight and three sixes, so instead of the original thirty five ounces or the expected thirty two, I had him on thirty four. But two ounces or three ounces a day makes a difference. After only two to three days it's the difference of a whole bottle and that's before you think about using it for making weaning muffins or anything else, because we still don't know if he's allergic to anything else so obviously if I'm making him anything dairy free I just want to use his own formula because - at least in theory - I know that's safe, but using that would mean that I'm making his milk last even less and I'm concerned that the doctors would tell me that I can't then have a prescription and he would have nothing he could eat, or drink, I guess. It's also not beyond the realms of possibility for me to drop a can or knock it over and the lids are CRAP, so even if it is "on" a dropped can might end up all over the floor, and then obviously would need to be replaced. It's thankfully not happened to us yet, but it could and that scares me. It's also not stocked in most pharmacies so they have to order it in and it can take a day or so.

Because of all of this worry and this is where we come to the crux of what I have been getting annoyed about, I have been looking on Facebook marketplace and Vinted (even though Vinted technically don't allow formula to be sold there) to pick up a can or two which aren't the ridiculous Amazon prices of Pepti, just to give myself a bit of breathing space, but I get really angry at some of the listings. 

I realise this is already really long so I'm going to try and cut a lot of the venting I did when I was dictating this one, but I get people who have bought cans on Amazon selling them to try and recover some of their costs, but some people have the gall to sell their prescription tins as though they paid Amazon prices for them. They're there with the prescription label still on them or in the paper Boots bag the way they come from the pharmacy and I honestly think it's not right. I know people take opportunities to make a quick buck but these people know how hard it is being an allergy mum and then they're trying to make money off of other allergy mums. It's not even like they're doing something like creating a local bakery which makes weaning muffins and caters to allergies or something, they're just selling something that was free to them at the point of use (because let's face it, prescriptions are not free. Aptamil aren't making it out of the goodness of their hearts.)

But some allergy parents, whether they have weaned their kid or they were wrongly diagnosed or they didn't get along with that particular brand, they get rid of their full cans for free to those who need them. I love those other parents. Those other parents have given me so much breathing space by meaning I have some spare so that I can wait for my prescription to come through, or I can make a batch of muffins for Little man to destroy and throw all over my kitchen, without having to worry that I'm risking the supply that we have for his bottles. And maybe it's wrong, but if I ever did need to get more so badly that I would need to pay for some of it from someone else, I would be looking at sellers who had bought it rather than were attempting to resell what they got for free, because it winds me up that much.

And don't get me started on those who list it as free and then say "I'm going to have to charge you X per thing..." No, love, you are not.  

Getting Your Money's Worth,

I probably shouldn't write some of this, or at least I shouldn't post a part of it, but whatever...

When it comes to wedding photography I know a lot of people have opinions on how expensive it can be and there are a lot of people who claim they don't have the budget for it so could a friend or family member do them a favour or would a photography student do it for cheap or for snacks or something. I realise that it can be a pretty huge expense, especially if you're DIYing a lot of the wedding day, but good photos don't just happen.

It's worth mentioning that there is a lot of pressure on a photographer to get the perfect wedding photos, with shot lists, expectations of styles and all that as well as things like family members expecting to use the opportunity to get some free family portraits (translation: family portraits paid for by someone else). It's not just on Reddit, I have genuinely seen it happen. There's also the whole thing of giving up their weekend - photography very often isn't someone's main job - travelling, all of the correspondence leading up to a wedding and all of the editing afterwards to get a perfect or as close to perfect as possible of the happiest day of a couple's lives. When booking, it might seem like you're paying upwards of £100 an hour, or sometimes a hell of a lot more than that, but let's not pretend that the hours on site at the wedding are the only hours that a photographer is working on your wedding.

With all of that said, it's still a hefty bill, so how do you make the most out of it? 

For us, we have a couple of spaces in our house which are currently occupied with almost like stock photo sort of things, which we will be replacing with our wedding photos. We know there will be certain family members who will want a photo in their house, too, which is fine, but when you think about the number of photos you get - I think our package includes something like 300 fully edited photos or something - how do you make the most of those when you've spent as much as you have? 

I guess one good way is to make sure that other parts of the family do get to enjoy the opportunity for family portraits, as long as you feel you have enough of you as a couple and enough family photographs with the bride and groom etc. Or you could post them all over social media at literally any given opportunity? 

I'm not talking about posting just after your wedding, or on your anniversary, or even the cutesy little anniversaries that some people know, and love, and remember, like the first date, when you became "official", your first kiss and all that, but things that have NOTHING to do with your wedding, but are an excuse to trot out the photos again like no other photos of that person exist or no one else has ever got married. 

Things like, sister's birthday - here's a photo of sister and the couple or one of the couple, and it's the only one you post congratulating them on their birthday, or the first 3 of 5 are from your wedding before two random ones - a child in the family has a last day of school or birthday or other milestone, and again, the only photos used or the main photos are from your wedding... It might be just me, but I find it kind of annoying, and kind of a bit selfish or self involved. I know weddings are a big thing and it's something you spend more time planning and stressing about than you actually get enjoying it, because the typical thing is to spend between 9 to 18 months planning and the event is just a day, but I do think people can be insane about it, especially people who go on about their wedding year, or whatever. I referred to an appointment as 'the Monday of wedding week' earlier and I was nearly sick in my own mouth as I said it, because yeah, it's the week of our wedding, and yes, we're going to be pretty busy getting stuff done that week, but I don't expect anyone else other than my future husband, my son (and even that one isn't really by choice) myself and maybe our parents at a push to give a stuff. 

When it gets to the day of the wedding, yeah, I kind of expect people to give a rat's behind, and if things aren't to their taste or what they would have done, I don't want to hear it, because it's not about them. If the photographer is busy trying to get our photos and they try to interrupt, I will probably get snippy, because we have our priorities for photos and that's what's important, but I'm not going to be spending the next few years posting them all over social media because for one thing my son will be on a lot of them and we're not posting him, and for another, I just don't expect everyone to care for too long afterwards.

As a tangent from all of this as well, I don't think I know the etiquette for posting your wedding photos on social media...

It's not so much about posting ours, but for weddings we attend I wonder when is the right time to mention or remind people we don't post photos of our son and don't want them to either, especially not on public profiles. But is that just restricted to kids? We have a couple of kids in the family that aren't posted onto social media and some of it is parental choice and some of it isn't (e.g. one is technically in foster and as a blanket rule foster children cannot be posted) but what about adult who don't use social media or who don't like photos being taken of them or don't like them being posted? Do you mention it before the wedding? Surely you can't mention it during the wedding!?! How long after should you leave it? Do you wait until a photo is posted and then ask for it to be removed? Well then the permissions or copyright or whatever has already been passed to the social media company or whatever, so surely that's too late? 

I really have no idea how to navigate that. 

Parenting Fails,

I was recently talking to some other mums about parenting fails, and then it went completely out of my head until I had a corker of one today. 

The ones we were talking about are the moments that make you feel like the worst parent ever, like when the pram falls over, whether it be because you've attached things to the back of it (guilty) and miscalculated or something happens and you hit something the wheels won't go over, or kids just have a bit of an accident where they fall off of things because they don't know what gravity is or what heights are. Thankfully when the pram toppled over on me, I grabbed it pretty quickly, and could see little man was just hanging out because he was well strapped in and he actually thought it was a game...

Well, today I was trying to find out what little man weighed and the best way that I can do that is weigh myself holding him and weigh myself when I've put him down, so when I had weighed myself holding him I needed to put him down and the best place I could think of was to put him in his bath seat, because it was close by, and I didn't think about the fact that there is a dimple in the middle of the seat... which was full of water from his last bath...

So there's me pulling my kid out of his bath seat in a soggy sleep suit and a nappy that had been brand new five minutes before but was now soggy on the outside, so I had to do a full strip change on him, and because I couldn't strip him off in the bathroom I soaked my t-shirt getting him back to his nursery for a change. 

I don't know if this is just normal of parenting or normal of ADHD or normal of ADHD parenting or if it's just me being rather special because I have a bad habit of slopping yoghurt down my shirt because I accidentally tip the yoghurt bit of a Clusters too much. Hilarious stupidity is something I tend to do a lot of, though it's normally more things like falling over my own feet, falling over things I've warned other people about or forgetting to take a towel with me before getting in the shower and then having to do a mad, naked dash through the house whilst soggy.

Sorry This Is Late,

Right, let me start this with saying that I am under no illusions that there are people sat there hitting refresh on my blog page waiting for the next riveting instalment of whatever drivel I happen to be posting about next but I like my routine and I don't much like when it gets interrupted, even when it is a facade of a routine like this is because I can queue a few posts up when I can... Despite all of that, I'm sorry this is going to be posted a few hours late of my usual scheduled time of noon on a Monday, Wedneday and Friday. Partly because I'm sorry to myself. 

So why is it late? 

Well, as anyone who has read any of my posts in the last few months will know, things at home, in life, etc, are BUSY at the moment, and I feel like I'm chasing my tail constantly to keep on top of things like chores (God, I love washing, it's never friggin' ending, especially with a baby), food (try having the energy to cook when everyone eats something different and the baby doesn't like being left on his own for even thirty seconds!), wedding prep (I'm not even thinking about how soon it is now, because the number of weeks is counting down and we're nearly into the calendar month that it is, which kind of makes me feel sick because I feel like there is still a lot to do) and general baby raising.

Up until recently, I could find a minute to do things - not many, but the bare minimum to be called things is two, and breathing counts as one, right??? - when little man was napping, or playing in his jumper (my health visitor has seen it and approves of it so it's not one of these that is bad for their health or development) but all of a sudden the jumper is the enemy and naps are a conspiracy, and don't even get him started on the travel cot I've been using as a play pen... There has been screaming, crying and iff he had words then I think that my little lad would just be singing McFly's 'I Wanna Hold You' or a new version, like I Wanna You To Hold Me. Constantly. Forever. Or just I Wanna Hold An Infinite Bottle...

Look, I know it is most likely teeth, or sleep regression or something like that, but it's difficult when I have more to do and less time to do it because there's no napping going on, and even when I tried to put Up on to settle him for a bit, there was no calm to be had. (Before you judge, I was feeling pretty damn desperate at that point, so I tried it!) 

Don't get me wrong, I know the time I have off of work with my son is a privilege and I'm trying to enjoy every minute of it, because I know it will be over almost as soon as I can blink but at the same time it can be truly testing when all I want to do is go to the bathroom, get a shower, have something to eat, write a blog post, or something, but I can't because he just sounds distressed and nothing really stops him. All the usual tricks won't help him sleep, he's only just eaten and if he eats too much, he will be sick. I know there are carriers and slings and things, but that only works for walking around because for chores I would be limited in movements, and he gets bored pretty quickly, too.

The only thing I can do, or that we can do, the baby and I, is keep plodding on.

I Think I'm Breaking Up With My Nuby Rapid Cool,

Before I start this properly, I'm going to admit to something and that's the fact I've always called it Nuby like Nub-ee, but I say a video by an influencer or content creator or whatever they term themselves who called it Nuby like New-Bee, and I would presume that they have been informed by the brand how to pronounce the brand name or something, so there goes me making a tit out of myself as per usual. 

That's not why I'm breaking up with my Rapid Cool though!

I will say this: I love the Rapid Cool. It's not just because it's easier when traveling out of the house, but also because it takes the guess work out of bottle making, and makes the whole process faster for us. I'm not a big fan of the formula makers because I've read too many things about the hot shot method not being great, or they don't get hot enough or all of these other sorts of things. Plus, they're a whole extra appliance you need to find a home for, they're only useful at home, you have to keep buying them new filters and all that sort of thing, so there is a lot I don't love about them, but the Rapid Cool is pretty good, and even when the battery goes in the lid (which takes a while anyway) the cooling part still works and that is the main bit.

BUT they only go up to 8oz of milk, and when you get to 8oz bottles, like we're on with allergy milk, you can't actually fit 8oz of water in the bottle AND 8 scoops of formula, so I find myself putting 6oz of water into it with the 8 scoops and then adding in 2oz of bottled water into the baby bottle, which then obviously drop the temperature as well, but also just makes the whole thing more of a faff. Now, I could just make 4 or 5 oz and then mix up the rest, but again, faff. Rapid Cools are great that I can just go and make a fresh bottle up when I'm bug eyed and wishing my day wasn't starting yet, give bubs the bottle without worrying that I forgot to check the temperature and then I can get back to sleep whilst he has a nap. It doesn't always work out that way, but it's great when it does. If I have to start focusing more to make two bottles worth up, or add this bit, add that bit etc then it all goes to pieces and I'm too awake to go back to sleep by the time he's finished the bottle.

Now, I'm not saying there are other options, because to my knowledge the only cooling flasks of their type are the Nuby and Tommee Tippee branded ones and they both have the exact same capacity, but it is still a frustration and honestly, if they made an XL version, I would buy it and I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one, because I don't know how twin mums (or dads or parents or other care givers) manage, or parents with babies who are close in age, because it surely makes sense when you're making a bottle to make enough for all babies on the same formula and then split it into feeding bottles, but you can't do that for anything over 7oz because there simply isn't enough space in there. In theory, little man's current 8oz feeds should be the largest ones we are doing, but I'm also conscious that he has good days and bad days with food, so there are days or sometimes just certain feeds in a day when he finishes his 8oz and is looking around for more, and I would love to be able to just realise what the pattern of that is and make him the extra for those times, but again, it's a faff so making two bottles is sometimes the less faffy of the two options. 

How Much AI Is In Your Wedding,

Obviously I know AI is a hot button issue right now and there are a lot of feelings involved in vocal opposition of it, particularly when it comes to art or image creation, particularly because that is either people's side hustle or their business and that can come under threat because of the capabilities of AI.

There are some things that, with the best will in the world, AI is not ready to replace. For one thing, it can design things, but it can't build them or interact fully with the physical world or physical things so even if you were to ask it to design a manicure or a hairstyle, it can merely provide ideas which then have to be brought to life by a person. Does that de-value the knowledge, skills and experience of those who have been in the industry for years? Of course it can do, but it can also help inform first time brides of options, help them feel a sense of control over their wedding and their planning and even assist newer suppliers, vendors and such in the industry by doing some of that work for them, but does that prevent them from gaining the experience that has a value later? Possibly. Despite saying that, my nails and my hair are things I'm working with lovely local businesses on without the use of AI. 

Even my dress isn't something which has been informed by AI. I did consider putting a photo of me through an AI and asking it to help me with some general guidelines of what would look better on my body, and then I decided to just choose something that I liked, which didn't go super well the first time over but I have since made up for it. I did ask AI to design me a wedding dress, just for poops and giggles really, but even if I had done that long enough ago to contact a seamstress, get a pattern designed, resized, tested, revised and eventually finished, I don't know if there would have been enough time between when we booked the wedding and when the wedding is, and it would have been ludicrously expensive. Even trying to do it myself would have been so beyond my skill level and excessively expensive, so it was really just for fun. And it did make me love my dress more, because it's real and it's well designed and it's pretty.

Before this sounds like a thing where I didn't use AI at all, I used templates on Canva for a lot of our wedding stationery because after extensive Googling I couldn't find anything that matched what I wanted or what I liked, and then when it came to our seating plan, we figured it out without using AI (partly by cork mats screwed to a wooden board and push pins in it) but then needed to have a seating plan image which we could share with the venue and I didn't want to have to draw it myself. The funny thing is that despite repeated attempts to get it to correct the errors, like going 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 or not putting enough seats at tables or too many seats at tables etc, it was still riddled with errors, but it was good enough to give an illustration. It definitely wasn't good enough to be printed, but that's fine since I wasn't planning on using it for that! 

I did consider using AI to make our welcome sign, but couldn't get close to what I wanted. At the point I was about to give up I found something a local artist had made that wasn't a welcome sign, messaged her with an idea that I had that was along the lines of what she does, and she was game for trying something a bit different. And it's amazing! 

There are other bits and pieces which my totally not artistic self is making or painting or doing and trying my best with, but we'll just see how it goes and how it turns out. Obviously I don't want to write too much about those at the moment, but maybe after the wedding... 

The True Cost of Working Away,

When my partner and I got together I knew that he was working in the type of role where he might end up working away, but the company he worked for at the point wasn't really getting him to work away a lot, if ever, and we had a long period of bliss where it just didn't happen, and from early on we didn't spend a whole lot of time apart.

Whilst we have been together he changed his role, which was good in some ways, and not so good in others (money, good, commute time, baaad) and there was talk about a lot more working away than there has been and part of that has been because his manager is a legend, and whilst we have been "enjoying" Little Man's newborn era (only in inverted commas because there are days when it is really rough) has been taking on a lot of the working away because he missed out on a lot with his own kids particularly in the early years, and he wanted to try and make sure that my partner gets as much time at home with our son as he can. (I'm so glad I'm out of the super hormonal part of post pregnancy, because otherwise I would be a weeping mess on the floor every time I think about how kind this is.)

But it's not all sunshine and rainbows, and when I was around eight months pregnant, my partner was needed to work away and as it's his job, obviously he had to go, but I think it was only one night (might have been two - my memory is terrible at this point) and the easiest thing was just for me to go and stay with my parents, because the idea of being thirty ish minutes away by car in case something happened overnight was a bit too overwhelming, and he was going to be over four hours away by car.

Naturally I did all of the usual soon to be mother panic and freak out things like making sure my birth plan was written out, making sure my hospital bag was with me at my mums, making sure I could charge my phone so if I needed to make a frantic call to him in the middle of the night, I could, and he did the soon to be dad freak out which I believe involves making sure that the vehicle is always brimmed with fuel, because no one needs to be looking for a fuel station when they need to start a mad dash to the hospital. As you probably already know, the mad dashes were not required.

Our baby boy is getting on for seven months, so it's been a while since the last time he actually stayed away overnight, but there have been a few locations where he probably should have stayed, but there wasn't the budget and or he hasn't wanted to leave us, so instead he's done long drives on top of long days and been utterly exhausted, but at least been able to sleep in the comfort of his own home and we've been together. And he was more than willing to do the same again, but I was worried about him, because driving tired is awful. Drinking Red Bull or similar so you are not too tired to drive is awful. I know he's used to driving and I know he's an adult and he can look after himself, but I also know it's not just that he wants to be at home to see me and to see our son, but also that he feels like he needs to be here to help, because babies are tiring. Babies are stressful. Babies are such a blessing, of course, and I love that kid so much, but that doesn't mean it's easy. He's a great partner because he wants to make sure I have support, but I don't want that to be at the detriment of his health, his wellbeing or anything else.

You can kind of see the stalemate we sort of reached here... but thankfully I promised I would get help, even if it was during the day, either go down to my mum's or go and visit family and such like, and reminded him that we have people around I can call for backup if needed (not going to lie, it would have been hard, my pride would have been hurt, but I would have done it, because I would have accepted that I needed to) and I've got through it just like tons of other parents do, but what's the cost been? 

For one thing, we didn't know until the last minute if he was definitely going, when he was going or if he was staying over, so it could have been a week of very early mornings (I apparently wake up, say bye and roll back over with no recollection of this most mornings) and very late nights where he would be returning home after our son was already in bed, or to a cranky baby who has been kept up to see his dad. None of that seems great for my kid. Because of that, things like food plans have gone out of the window and whilst I've adapted, it's been a touch annoying to say the least. 

As many people have, we've been watching the World Cup matches together and him being away meant that our last match of actually being in contention for the Cup we had to watch apart. Now, he might have been quite happy with that because I'm not a particularly big fan of football, but normally he is my barometer for when I need to look up from whatever else I'm doing (only when we're watching on the TV) so I don't miss the important bits... I missed England's goal but saw both the Argentina goals...

Naturally him being away affects our conversations, too, because when signal is crap and he's on the way home we can just say 'I'll see you in an hour, I'll speak to you when you're home...' or whatever it is, but when the only contact we'll have to connect over is the phone, it makes those calls far more important, and far more frustrating when the signal is shocking or my auditory processing disorder flares up (which happens a lot and is why there are subtitles on my TV permanently). I tend to have calls on loud speaker, because I can do other things at the same time then and that helps my brain stay "in" the conversation, but then it means that my son can hear his dad on the phone, and he smiles, he looks around and then he can't see his dad, so he looks confused. Honestly, that was rougher than I expected, because he doesn't understand when I tell him Dad's going to be home in a couple of days. He's still of an age where if it's not in front of him, it doesn't exist. (And joys of ADHD, I have times like that, too.) 

Earlier in this blog there were notes of triumph, because I've managed things okay. I've had help, but my son and I have been fine. He's been eating fine, smiling, laughing, and gone to bed when he should do. I've got washing done and tidied up and generally felt like something of a functional human, which is incredible, but I've also missed the hell out of my partner and I can't wait for him to get home. And yes, I do know that there are a lot of people whose partners work away and some are gone for months at a time or some go and they're working in war zones. I get it. Or at least I get that I don't get it, partly because I know I'm not built for that. In a big way, to me, working away sucks, and I'm pretty sure my little boy would agree. 

How Big Is Your Small Wedding,

And we're back onto weddings...

I may have said this before, but if I don't remember then what's the likelihood anyone else does? Actually, it's probable that someone else would remember better than me because my memory is terrible at the moment.

The smallest wedding that you can legally have in the UK (and probably anywhere, but I'm just writing what I know) is the two partners, two witnesses and then your celebrant(s), registrars or religious leader(s) which works out to five people at the very bare minimum, and the very easiest that you can do that is at a registry office, but even then you have to give notice and wait for twenty nine days (the day you give notice and twenty eight days afterwards) before you are actually able to get married. I will admit that I would have appreciated a wedding like that, partly because it's not having to talk in front of a bunch of people or having to have too many people involved or too many people's opinions and inevitably it's one of the cheapest ways to get married. I don't think it was ever something that we entertained though, because my partner wants his family with them and I do, too, and there are some people it would just be more hassle to not have there than it is to have them.

Thinking a little bit bigger would have been just including both sets of our parents, which for us would have meant the two of us, four parents and assuming that two of them could be witnesses (it's actually not a given) and then the registrars which would make for a room of eight people, or if we could have done something we did consider, at least for a minute, seven people by being married on a cruise ship and having the ceremony done by the captain. The problem with that being that my partners parents are raising one of their grandchildren, so we would have needed to include them, and then both sets of parents would likely have wanted us to include our siblings, which would have been another three, plus one sibling's partner, so four. Once you're including that number of people there are other family that we would need to include which then started to tick the numbers up even further, and as we went through it our small wedding seemed to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

This is one of the reasons, and there are a few on a list, but this is one of the bigger reasons why we weren't allowing plus ones for the wedding. To me, plus ones are just adding random people you need to pay for and accommodate and also tolerate to your wedding day, but they are likely people you don't know, have never met and will never see again, so unless necessary - like they are the spouse of someone who knows no one else at the event - they were something we definitely wanted to avoid. When other people have wanted to invite people to our wedding, it's been hard to say no, but for the majority of times it has been a no, because we didn't want some sort of massive event (and only partly because we didn't want a massive bill for it). 

By the end of it, we could have added probably another fifty people onto the evening do if we had really wanted to, but the most important thing to us was that it would be an event of people we are close to, who are close to us and it be something we can both enjoy and that our son can enjoy without being surrounded by hundreds of people we or he don't know, or have to spend the entire wedding introducing each other to half of the room. How big is our small wedding? Maybe a little bigger than we quite wanted it to be, but still small enough for comfort, I think.

I'm Screaming Writing This,

I'm so mad, because I've been doing so well writing these posts and scheduling them because I know finding the time is impossible, but it's been a super busy weekend and whilst I took my laptop with me to London to go and see My Chemical Romance for the second time, I didn't touch it once! Why am I screaming? Because the schedule I made for myself is to post these at noon and it's already 11 am and I'm working against the baby having been down for a nap for a while already, juggling wedding admin that needs to be done by our last wedding meeting with the venue (which is so soon!) and also my inability to type very fast because I'm still getting used to having gel nails and they're great, they look fabulous, but my God do they seem to get in the way of life. I wouldn't mind, but they're not even that long!

This weekend has been the best in a while though, because my partner has been home since Thursday evening and we've been able to spend it together. 

Friday was a family event and we got to enjoy that as a little family of three, even though I managed to forget to bring bottles and had to try and get Little Man to have his milk from a cup. He's hated cups for a while and seems to either cry at them, drop them or try and throw them, so that wasn't really going to plan for a bit, until he realised it was his normal milk just in a different type of container and then he calmed down... as we were organising an emergency trip to the supermarket for a new bottle...

Then Saturday was his first sleepover. In the heat. We decamped half of the contents of our living room down to my mum and dad's place so that they could look after him whilst we went to see My Chemical Romance again and I cried my little emo heart out screaming along to every song, because there will never be a point where I don't absolutely adore The Black Parade in its entirety. The little guy was fine, but holy hell he didn't make it easy on himself with refusing to sleep, crying until he was so red in the face it was impossible to tell if he was too warm or just on strike from sleeping, and then clearly wasn't impressed at sleeping somewhere different.

Sunday was all about the drive home, and yes, I could have had my laptop on my knee, tapping away whilst I wasn't driving, but I was doing *redacted wedding prep activities* instead and given how close it's getting, that was more important at the time! 

So that's life. Still busy. Still messy. Still disorganised, but making it work as best as possible, and still getting this blog written and published by noon, because contrary to the opinion of the doubting voice in my head, I can do this.

What's For Tea?,

Some people are probably not aware of the fact that I have a lot of anxiety around food because I have a lot of anxiety about talking about my anxiety around food, so I just don't a lot of the time, but I've been trying to more in appropriate places and at appropriate times because I think it helps the scouts that I work with know that they can talk to me about their issues with food and know that I won't push them on things they're not comfortable on since I get it. Before you say, nobody would, trust me, I've been there and I've seen it handled badly.

Naturally, when it gets to a certain point in an evening, the conversation between most couples or families or sets of roommates if they eat together is to ask what's for tea or what do you fancy for tea, or what are we making for tea etc. We used to follow that question up with the word Mum because even when she wasn't making it, she was always the one deciding what we were having etc because she did the shopping and knew what was in the house. Yeah, we were kind of lazy. For Paul and I, it's a bit more complicated.

I've been a vegetarian for over two decades (yes, it really has been that long) and whilst I've taken part in Veganuary a couple of times I have never thought I could seriously go vegan for any long period of time, so much so that when our baby was having issues and it looked like either lacotse intolerance or CMPA (spoiler alert: it was CMPA) I had a good cry over the fact that I would have to stop breast feeding or pumping at all because I just knew that I couldn't drop all dairy from my diet to make sure that my breast milk was safe for Little Man. That might sounds selfish, but most of the protein in my diet is from things like eggs and cheese, and whilst I had at one stage got myself off drinking 'normal' milk in tea and coffee and started drinking Oatly, it's something I stopped a long time ago, and when I've tried to transition back to it, I just can't make myself do it. There is a taste difference and the longer it's been since I drank oat milk regularly, the more it tastes somewhat porridgy to me and it kind of ruins my drinks.

All that being said, Little Man is now of an age where he's starting to have bits of food and it's quite nice to be able to give him bits of things we're having, but that's not very possible given his allergy, so anything I'm making feels like I'm making three different versions of so we can all eat, or we're having to make two or three different dinners to get everyone fed and meet everyone's needs which is honestly making life much more complicated and I'm not even back at work yet! So here's hoping that it doesn't take little man too long to work his way through the milk ladder and outgrow his allergy to milk, butter, cheese, cream and all the other good things in life, particularly because most dairy free chocolate sucks. 

Can You Play Musical Chairs At A Wedding?,

Genuine question because it would honestly make certain things in life, or at least during wedding planning, a lot easier, but it would make things a lot more difficult.

On the plus side, it would take out the need to do a table plan, which is a big thing, because it's not just the display, the ideas of how you do the display, how you put it up (does it go on an easel or a stand or have it's own legs or what?) or about everyone who tries to get involved and say who they will or won't sit with or anything like that, but it is the sitting down and thinking which personalities will mesh well, who is going to clash and who will bring the drama and who will calm the drama. It's about who is going to be shy or feel awkward, who gets nervous and word vomits all over who they are next to (and how the person next to them is going to take that) and all of the other bits that you worry about when you're putting people together for a stretch of at least an hour and a half. If you tell everyone it's a game of musical chairs you take the stress out of it for yourself, but then the problem is you pass it onto your guests and for us that would be horrible for a few people, because a few of them are travelling to the wedding on their own. For people that don't know anyone, it would be really hard.

As if passing the stress on isn't bad enough, and let's face it, it would be bad enough because some people are quite vocal about their disapproval of certain things at weddings, if you've planned a plated meal like we have, it would make it impossible for the venue. I read of a wedding group recently that someone was trying to do a plated meal but without options, so if you could find a dish that worked for everyone then yeah, maybe that works, but we have multiple people with allergies, people with multiple allergies, dietary requirements and sensory food issues, so unless we did something like chips, which let's face it, is not a meal, it wouldn't work. 

I mean, I suppose the answer to all of that is to have a buffet, but I would still worry that it means guests who have come on their own would struggle, and people you would genuinely like to introduce may never meet, and also buffets are, at least to me, somewhat problematic, because it all just feels like snack food and a wedding is a long day (or at least ours feels like it could be) and I need more than snack food to get me through it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

We started on our seating plan weeks ago and honestly found it a struggle, as many people do, but when we sat and looked at it again, pretty much determined that we were going to get it done that evening come hell or high blood pressure, we didn't even argue. We debated a couple of things, looked at it from personalities and also the maths of how many people fit on each table, but then it didn't take too long to come up with something that we thought actually fit the majority of people or was at least the best that we could do. 

And if all else fails, or someone tries to bring the drama, or a couple of people get too into their politics or anything like that, it kind of becomes musical chairs at the evening do anyway, because there are a few more people and the assigned seating kind of idea goes a bit out of the window, doesn't it? In theory people will move around, chat, dance and all that, or at least I would hope that they would... 

Little Library,

No, my library isn't a Little Library like the type people have in their front yard where you can borrow a book, or do a take one leave one kind of idea or anything like that, nor is my library little when it comes to the size of it, but I was struggling with what to call this post and that was the best I could come up with, so sorry and all that.

Today (day of writing, not day of posting) I have been wandering around the house trying to find something. Today is just another episode of an ongoing sequel of me trying to find said thing which is currently missing, and during said frustrating sequel, I have found other things I had stopped looking for because I had solved the problem in a different way. Which is somehow more annoying. Probably about as annoying as me being so vague about the whole thing really. 

The original missing thing was my birth certificate, which generally isn't overly big of a deal because it's not like it's something I need on a regular or even semi regular basis, but I did need it for my and my partner's appointment to give notice ahead of getting married. As I don't have a valid passport, I needed my birth certificate and my mother's birth certificate, and because I had already lost mine and looked everywhere for the damn thing, I had to order another one, so insisted that my mum come with us to the appointment because it was bad enough losing mine, I wasn't going to lose her's as well. That appointment was about three months ago, but I finally found the birth certificate in the loft whilst I was up there looking for my expired passport, because you need the expired one to renew your passport. Who knew?

In the meantime I had also lost the V5 for my car (not my car I actually drive but my first car which has been sat like a large lawn ornament for a few months other than the few weeks my dad needed to borrow it) and I wanted to be able to sell it, and just when I was looking at ordering a new one, but then found someone who wanted to buy it, we found the V5, ordered a new one to update details and then had a nightmare trying to get the tax sorted so the new owner could actually take it home. Oh, and my car keys. For my actual this is the one I drive car. I had the spare, but the spare has a dodgy battery and no keyring loop on it, which means it's smaller and easier to lose (clearly an issue for me). Thankfully that turned up in the pocket of a jacket I barely use, after I had put the spare into a pocket of a bag I always have with me so I knew where it was.

In my head, I can see myself putting the expired passport down the side of a book. It's not into a book, but down the side of a book, with the idea that I don't need it now, won't need it later and it's not something I need to worry about. I wasn't intending to sort out a passport until after the wedding, because it just sounds annoying to have to add it to the already long list of things I need to change my name on, but then we changed our minds a few times about what we want to do as a honeymoon and several of the ideas we are happy with require me to have a passport, so I was looking into doing mine and my son's. Except I can't, because my old one has either crawled away and is laughing to itself (not literally...) or been taken by The Borrowers to be used as a tent for a camping weekend or similar. Seriously, I'm running out of places to keep looking for it.

You might be sat there reading this thinking, there's got to be another way around it and there is, of course, because I'm neither the first, the last nor the only blinking eejit to lose my passport or assume that an expired passport has no value, but having to cancel the old passport and have it replaced takes longer and we're already running into the time of year where passports take longer than usual. Or should I say one of the points of the year, so I want to try and get it to take the least amount of time as possible, though I appreciate that doing so is meaning that I am wasting the amount of time that would have been added on by the cancelling, but it's a bit of a sunken cost fallacy now and trying to convince myself to just abandon the search is annoying me, because I know that the second I have done it, the missing one will turn up and it will bug me.

What does this have to do with the library? Well for one, between my future husband and I we went through the... several hundred... books on the shelves to check that the passport wasn't between any of them, and it wasn't annoyingly, so today I put all of the rest of the books from the boxes in the front room onto the shelves so I could check between the rest of the books, and it was still not there. As I was unpacking everything there was a buzzing through my head about the number of books I have and all of the comments people make about the number of books I own (to which I say, shuddup) but, possibly as a byproduct from having watched The Testaments recently, but my head went Gilead and the fictional worlds of Christine Dalcher and how owning books was prohibited for women, and the world of V for Vendetta where owning certain books was prohibited, most famously the Quran. I remembered a moment of standing in a street in Berlin where a piece of artwork built into the floor depicting empty shelves to represent all of the books that were burnt why the Nazis. All of this is to say that there are times in history and times in fiction where owning books, or at the very least a certain type of books, is considered to be an act of treason or an act of rebellion. Obviously I like the rebellion idea a little better.

Now, I'm not trying to suggest that that's the reason I own them all, because it's not. Even before I was aware of having ADHD there were signs and signals for the right person to pick up on, even if no one did until I was in my thirties... When I started collecting books (to the best of my memory it started with Goosebumps when I was about nine) these ideas were completely alien to me, but it might be part of the reason I continue to own them, even though I have been making efforts to at least slightly slim down my collection. It's also worth noting that although, as I mentioned, some of these worlds are fictional, I wouldn't be the first or only person to draw parallels with certain political figures, parties, ideologies etc to those worlds, so it's really not that out there to think that it's possible that during our lifetimes, owning books, whether specific or any sort, could again be an act of rebellion. Just a thought.

Sht Happens,

I feel like pre-baby, I vastly overestimated the amount of 'blow out' nappies we were going to have, and whilst I appreciate that might sound like a really privileged thing to say, it is not, or at least not in my view.

I do have to wonder if one of the reasons we've not had as many 'blow outs' as the internet and other parents led us to believe we would is because my son has had digestive issues since he was only a few days old, leading to us spending far too many hours in the hospital when he was 4-6 days old (and yes, that was over the Christmas period) so yes, we've gone through difficult periods of constipation, but that normally results in the kind of thing that you would expect to cause a 'blow out' and it very rarely does. In completely honesty, the only real problems we have had have either been when we haven't realised he's pooped immediately and he's been sat in it for a bit of time, or when we've checked if he's pooped by pulling the frilly bit away from his leg, and then there is a leak... There have been more times when he has peed through his nappy, but even that hasn't been overly common. From what I understood in the before times, I thought it would be the sort of thing which happened at least a couple of times a week.

Why does it matter? Surely this is meaning that parenting is easier than you expected it to be? Well, no, not really, because you very quickly learn that cleaning up a dirty nappy or even a very wet nappy is not as complicated as you think it is, even when you accidentally leave the packet of baby wipes on the table when you're repacking the nappy bag. That might be because we carry wet bags (the type from reusable nappies, even though we're not using the reusable nappies at the moment), at least two extra outfits and I recently left the packing cubes of clothes we took on a road trip in the car because they had extra clothes, extra muslins, extra bibs and extra wet bags in the car for a week in case I needed them each time I went out, but I like to think that's just normal preparation... 

So, why does it matter? Because when you are planning how many clothes you are going to need for your baby it is a factor, and if I was being really nerdy (which I can be) I'd say it's the thing that takes you from thinking, how many clothes do I need, the answer is n, and turning n into like 10n (or 10 times n). You over plan, over buy, and then have to store all of these clothes that you just don't need. Some of it you bought, some of it friends and family bought and gifted to you, some of it you inherit from other people who've had babies, and some of it will never come out of the wardrobe, or it will be worn once or twice before the baby that was so tiny in it the first time you put it on is now spilling out of it in all directions, and you probably didn't even get a photo for the person who bought it for you. (I had always planned on getting a photo of the baby in each outfit that was bought for them and sending it to the person who bought it, and I have really tried, but I have also lost track of so many of the gifts, because there were a lot and there was a lot going on, obviously!!) 

Now, I know some people will say prioritise the gifts, but even doing that there was still a lot, or don't have them or let them rewear something that has been stained with food or anything else, but particularly when they get to the age little man is at the moment where they are eating purees, some things go on the outfit no matter how many bibs or wipes or anything you use, and then they never come out. And if you choose not to reuse things because that has happened, you'd just be spreading out the amount of things you were getting stains on, because like I said, it happens. There is a reason that some people keep one outfit, or set of outfits for nursery, and it's not just because kids play with glitter and paint and other messy stuff, but because they are messy when they learn to eat. My son was wearing a vest, t-shirt, shorts and a bib for about ten minutes this morning, because he dribbled his porridge down his bid and his shirt (and a tiny bit onto his vest) and smeared his porridge on his shorts, so everything but the vest had to come off, and that was only because I didn't have the energy or motivation to take him upstairs for a tiny wet patch on the vest which would be dry in no time thanks to the current weather, or would get bigger when he dribbled through or around his next bib. Last night, following a rather successful encounter with a pumpkin puree pocket (try saying that three times fast without tripping over the letters...) I had to put the whole baby in the bath because it was everywhere, and that's just where we're at along the weaning journey at the moment, so unless I stick to foods which won't stain (which sound beige and boring) we're probably more likely to be going for multiple changes a day now, even more so than when he was tiny, and I'm fine with that.

But I'm also still finding and packing up his nought to three month clothes and some of the newborn, first size and tiny baby ones as well, including the pram suits and realising that even though pram suits are generous in size so mostly you can wear them a little longer than some of the baby grows of the same size, they're still not in them for long and you don't need three or four to give you time to wash and dry them because they don't get that dirty on every wear, babies don't sweat like adults do in puffer jackets and, most importantly, most baby clothing is actually tumble dryable, so it can get washed and dried in between uses pretty easily, as long as parents can keep their eyes open long enough to run the machines.

That Wedding Series,

Welcome back to the Charlie moans about wedding planning and wedding things... If you're getting bored, don't worry, it's nearly here, which hopefully means the moaning over it is nearly over. Wouldn't that be good?

What do I want to moan about today? Okay, this is less of a moan, and more of a... I don't know. 

Once upon a tradition, people hadn't lived together before they got married and the vast majority wouldn't have lived out of their parent's house, so the things you got for wedding presents were essentially the things to kit out your kitchen or towels, because you didn't have any. It was like with a baby shower - you've not got any of the things you need yet, so here is everything. As time moved on, people potentially had lived out even if they didn't live together - for example, my mum had lived with her sister in law who is also one of her closest friends, whilst my dad still stayed at home with him parents - so instead of needing everything from scratch, wedding presents were things like a better set of pans, like Le Creuset, or a wedding dinner set which only ever comes out at Christmas or special occasions and never for the kids. (I don't blame my parents for that, because I drop things a lot.)

These days, it's really not that uncommon to have lived together before you marry and it's also not uncommon to already have a child or two, and so when people ask what you want as a wedding present, a lot of people will ask for money for the honeymoon. Mentioning no names but a few of my relatives think that is hideous. I'm passing no judgement because I completely understand why that would be the case, but I also understand why people don't much like the idea of it. Maybe one of the reasons I'm not overly fussed either way is because I don't currently have a passport and neither does my son, so we're probably not going to get the chance to book a honeymoon abroad and we've realised that our son isn't the biggest fan of a road trip which takes out a lot of options where we don't need passports. Maybe if we were booking something I would be saying the same as others because hell, we don't need anything...

We've been living in a house that we share since October, were living together in my house for a few months before that and were living across both houses before that, because from pretty early on we knew that we just wanted to spend time together, but none of that is simple, because we had to try and condense the contents of two houses into one, and at the same time gained a whole bunch of stuff for the baby. We were really, really lucky in that we were giving a lot of things to help us with the baby, but it was more stuff to find places for and there have needed to be a lot of decisions to get rid of some things and there's still a lot where we have duplicates of things. Some of that isn't so bad because it's things like milk frothers, which break when I use them a lot so having a spare is fine, or kettles, which is good because we have a baby who needs bottles making and my kettle is a dumbass smart thing that likes dribbling (but we love being able to yell at the Alexa to turn it off when we've left it on Keep Warm) but other things are less easy because they're things like a fridge freezer (so we have one in the garage to keep Costco packs of drinks in or huge packs of chicken nuggets and the other in the house).

All this is to say that tradition wedding presents aren't really something which we would need at all. Fancy wine glasses? We've got a few, ta. Fancy dinner set? As mentioned before, I drop things. In fact, we both do. Also, whilst I can understand that some people might want to get something personalised, I think it's a difficult one if the couple don't have a registry and ask for something particularly, because unless you know people really, really well, taste is a major factor, and decor is personal. 

You'd think from all this that I would be all over making a registry for the wedding and the truth is that I tried, but the problem is that we really don't want or need anything we can list from stores and if we do want or need it, it's normally because it's out of the budget of what we can spend on a month to month basis and we're trying to get past the wedding before making any major purchases because weddings are expensive enough, and I'm on maternity leave! Statutory pay is absolutely no joke, and we need to be careful about things we need to pay out for - like the photographer for the wedding - and things we don't - like an American style fridge and a carpenter to modify the kitchen cabinets so it fits where we want it, considering we have a working fridge. 

As far as I've researched there isn't something that can create like, pots, essentially, for gifting into, where the money is to be used for something specific, but that people can contribute whatever amount they want to contribute to. Let's face it, I could do a registry and put an American style fridge on there, but there are very few guests coming to my wedding that I think would be spending that kind of money on a gift - nor would I want them to! BUT if were had, for example, a 'pot' for the kitchen which was for the fridge and the work to fit it where it should be going, and people could choose to add whatever they wanted to it as a gift, it takes some of the hassle out for them trying to think of a gift, or the worry we won't need it, use it or like it, and also would help us with actual practical things we need or want to do with the house. Another example could easily be the bathroom. Neither of us is a fan on the tile, the cabinets have seen better days and the general amount of storage in there is abysmal, plus a really stupid part of the shower screen is broken so it's not working perfectly but is not annoying enough to warrant being high on the list for being fixed at present, but have a 'pot' for it where it's assigned to something like Wickes or B&Q or something, something that was specifically bathrooms, that would be really cool, though I appreciate it would be something that would take a whole lot of administration, but it would still be really cool. As it is, when people ask what we need I give the equivalent of a non-comital shrug, because I really don't know... 

And let's face it, a gift registry is only ever suggestions anyway...

There Is Something More Frustrating Than A Blank Page,

I have thought before that the most frustrating thing is a blank page, but that's because I've never been planning something big as far in advance as I have been with the wedding.

The thing about the wedding is it gives me plenty of things I want to write about, but there is a lot of it that I don't want to post until after the wedding because some of the people reading it will be attending the wedding and I'm being a bit River Song over it (Spoilers...) 

And let's be honest, there is a lot of it which would just be moaning, partly because the things I have already posted have been moans. Wedding planning is stressful and there is a lot to it that I never knew about or never thought about and some really stupid bits like, because we already have a child together, his birth needs to be re-registered after the wedding so that he is seen as a child of our marriage, even though he wasn't because he was born over eight months before we were married...

It seems really stupid to me, but it is something that we have to do.

I have even considered posting some of the things I have been writing or wanting to write about the wedding, but blanking out certain details or changing details so that it doesn't have those sort of spoilers, but at the same time it seems weird to do this. For once, it is not a blank page which frustrates me, but pages full of things I want to say that it is not the time to say, so I have to delay it until after the wedding is done.

That Photo,

Let me start this by saying I am a habitual nail biter and have been for a decent chunk of my life. I have used the "trick" of painting my nails clear or nude or with a transparent glitter in order to not bite them for a small period, but my nails are pathetic and not just because of how long I have bitten them for; my mum's nails kind of suck as well (sorry Mum). I was never really bothered by it. And then I got engaged...

When we got engaged, I didn't want a photo of the ring on my hand where my nails were visible, because I just hated that they looked so awful and having a beautiful engagement ring (I think she's gorgeous anyway) only made me feel like they looked worse, but I just didn't take the 'traditional' photo or photos like the photo of just my hand and the ring or one with my hand on him with the ring visible, and I never really thought it bothered me too much that I didn't have it. And then I thought about our wedding photos... 

We've spent a fair amount of money on having a photographer for certain parts of the day, partly with the idea that at least one of those photos will be hanging in our house, and let's face it, both sets of parents are likely to want a photo from it in their homes, as are our grandparents, and I just kept thinking about how it would either be really hard to hide my hands, or they would just look awful, so when we were walking around the village a few weeks back getting errands done, I went into the nail salon and asked if there was anything that they could do to sort them out.

When I was going for the appointment, my partner asked how long I would be so he knew whether to try and keep the baby awake for me or to do bedtime solo, and I told him I had no idea. I even had to Google it on the way there as to what the type of nails I was getting done were since I had no idea. I had never had a manicure before so I had no clue about any of it. I didn't know how often I was going to need to get it done so they're alright for the wedding, or how much it was going to cost, but I knew it was going to be worth it so I didn't have to feel like they were ugly as hell and something I needed to hide on my wedding day, and I was right.

The finished nails are not something ridiculous or obvious, but they are a significant improvement, so much so that I  couldn't stop looking at them and kind of wanted to take the photos we had missed out on when we got engaged, but at the same time I don't want to feel like I'm trying to rewrite history just because I like something about myself now that I didn't like back then, but like this I can keep them looking lovely and have them looking nice on my wedding day for the photos with our rings and actually any of the photos that we have taken for the day. It seems like such a little thing but it's the sort of little thing that means a lot and I'm glad it's another item ticked off of the to do list. And given the number of things we are doing in the next few weeks, including a couple of My Chemical Romance gigs, I'm kind of proud that I didn't go for something crazy like black or red polish that would have been a lot more obvious!!