Today mummy, we play!

PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!

This has become Ollie’s new word recently. At first I knew this to be about going into what looked like a park (even just a square foot of grass and a bush) or a play den area. Over the last few days I have noticed that Ollie is actually really focussing on independent play.

I have spent many an afternoon dodging hard and soft toys being launched across the room and tubs of bricks being emptied for the sake of emptying. Up until today I have been assuming Ollie was still going through an almost exploratory method of play, but today (and thinking about it more over the last couple of weeks) Ollie has taken to actually playing with his toys.

It is a very beautiful and proud activity to watch and today was the most I have seen and observed.

In true Ollie style he emptied his entire toy box on the floor, which is full of all sorts of things. I thought again he would throw it about, or kick his feet through it. To my surprise that was nothing like what he actually did. He collapsed the pop up toy box and searched through the pile of toys for a car, sat down and started using the now flat box as a road. I literally just stood and watched; he didn’t notice me but I am so glad I did not miss it.

On thinking about it this evening, he has shown lots of signs of wanting to play with us. He now uses US as roads for his car (my back must be a great flat surface). He has been combining toys, like characters and slides and today at a clinic he carried a doll around the room showing the other babies and mums the doll’s belly.

I am very excited to share in these moments with him and I am looking forward to him playing with some of the toys he had for Christmas (that are character and car based) instead of them being at the bottom of a toy box.

Exciting times ahead, I am so glad I am not missing this.

How did you feel when you first noticed your child playing?

I would love to know your stories.

The New You – Breaking the habit

habit

          1. a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

 

To all of you lovely people who have missed my posts. I am back with clarity and focus of what I want to share with you. I have spent a lot of time on my personal development, I have been reading and listening to audio and putting all of the things I am learning into practice.

 

A huge part of this has been looking at self destructive ‘habits’ that were not helping me move forward in my life and my business; they were stopping me from developing and reaching my potential in every area of my life especially my business and my relationships. I have really enjoyed this development and have now put in place positive habits that are helping me progress and grow.

It takes on average 30 days of doing something consistently to make something a habit. So I have set my habit changes for the month, we are only 8 days in and what a difference it has made. (I have created a habit sheet with 30 days on, I tick each day I use the positive habit instead of the negative).

 

It seems so easy to stop something that may be ‘difficult’ or ‘new’ but if you are consistently challenging yourself you are growing and ‘If you are not growing, your dying’ (Anthony Robbins)

So what habits have I set to change… well I had a few that I would like to work on but at the moment I am looking at my productivity in my life, business and relationships; what do I mean you ask? I am glad you asked. I, like many others, HAD a ‘habit’ of procrastination, this can mean I WAS not meeting up with friends and family and maintaining those important relationships. It can mean I WAS using excuses to not do something like ‘oh I will do the washing then make a phone call’ (It takes longer to do the washing Louise – yes head fairy I know).

 

It also means that I LEFT tasks that are very simple to be done another time, that other time TURNED into the ONLY time that I am able to do anything so I feel stressed because I have to do EVERYTHING that I set for myself. NOTE TO SELF: Just to do it NOW!

 

So this is habit one that I have been working on. DO SOMETHING WHEN IT NEEDS DOING!

The second is a little more specific but in the same area of productivity…ready for it FACEBOOK! Ok now I know that sometimes a good Facebook stalking session is therapeutic but be honest, do you really need to look up this new contacts great aunt and see what they were doing in 2009 and what hair colour they had? NO.

‘Hello my name is ……………………….and I have a Facebook addition’ (How many people just added their name?)

 

It is incredible the power that social media has on our lives, for others they use different platforms but for me it WAS always Facebook. I would lose myself for hours, the tea would burn, the bath overrun and a number of times I did not want to take that all important loo break.

 

So how have I now tackled this habit?

 

I like to read and I like to read self development and business books… so I have set myself the NEW habit of:

 

Read for at least 30 minutes or 10 pages of a book, that is helping towards building yourself or your business, BEFORE checking Facebook. Now you will be pleased to know this is going really well, the trend that has set in is that I will get up to read INSTEAD of Facebook stalking (or reading every post I read the night before bed) then Ollie will wake and my day starts. I actually am not checking Facebook until about 9:30am now WOW I know right????

SO my third ‘negative habit’ that I have challenged is again for productivity in my life… Ollie’s nap times.

 

Now as a mum it is VERY tempting to use this time in 1 of two ways (I tried both and it was not successful) 1: Vegetate or 2: CLEAN EVERYTHING (That will be messy in an hour anyway).

 

How many of you mums reading this can relate to that? Now I am a full time mum and yes I am busy being a mum. But I run a successful business alongside a chaotic baby boy HOW you ask? NAP TIME!!!!

 

Neither of the above were really working for me and my productivity would drop over the course of the week (after nursery on a Monday). I have now stopped creating more stress for myself by worrying about ALL of the things I need to do during the day and I ENJOY the time with my son. I use nap times and after bedtime to do all of those business tasks that having a toddler hanging off your leg hinders a little.

When you want to ANYTHING successfully time management is KEY to that success. All of the above ‘habits’ that I wanted to change were all achieved by the use of effective time management.

 

Now that I have tackled these habits I am a new ME:

 

I am in control

 

I am calm

 

I am successful

 

I am positive

 

I am happy

 

I am motivated

 

I am proud

 

I am ABLE

 

I am inspired

 

I am educated

 

I am ME

 

 

This has been a really fun journey and I am excited for the future ME.

 

What are your negative habits? What would you change in your life?

I hope you find some of my journey useful.

 

5 Days and Counting …Down – Old School Selfies

I am really glad for the selfie, it gives me a chance to look back over great memories and realise fashion mistakes!

Today I spent some time thinking about all the positive and negative things that have led me to where I am today.

We look to the past a lot, but the difference today was that I was grateful; grateful for every event, learning experience and change as today I understand myself so much more thanks to them all.

So I thought I would share with you the selfies from when my journey really started 5 years ago.

Leap of faith and a big smiley welcome!

I want to start by saying a huge welcome to my blog. This is a journal of my journey from full time working mum into a world of endless opportunity and possibility. I am very excited about this journey and I look forward to sharing it with you.

To give you a bit of background about me, I am a trained photographer and qualified administrator and I have an entrepreneurial mind. I am now 29 years old and since 22 I have been working hard on building my skills and my CV in my areas of interest and passion. I have not been able to run my own photography business since the early stages of my pregnancy and have focused on my full time job and my home life.

This year my world was changed with the birth of my beautiful son Oliver and since his birth in January 2013 I have been searching for the right balance between work and my family.

Recent months have seen a large amount of changes, positive and, what would appear to be, negative. However all of them have now moved me to this point; the point where a week ago I was able to hand in my notice to my full time job, without a plan, or anything fixed to go to.

This is my journey!