Oh, you beautifull spring!

Well, at last sunshine the whole weekend. Warmth. Colour. Food outside! Happy people. Oh, how I missed spring. We spent the entire weekend outside (park, garden, outside cafes). By the end of each day I felt slightly dizzy from all the fresh (or as fresh as it can be in London) air. Even Cayman the dog is knackered today after running riots out in the open for two days. Oh, and Little Miss S. How much fun did she have?! She has red cheeks, couple of bruises and lots of muddy clothes. She was rolling around on the grass, chasing poor Cayman and then pouring the entire content of dog's water bowl over herself. I, normally not a big fan of stains and dirty hands, just watched all of this scene unfold with a smirk on my face and glass of Sauvignon Blanc in my hand. Sod all the grass and mud stains. How amazing to watch your child explore new things in the garden or a park. She even tried ice-cream for the first time! Well, daddy gave her some, and I, with two scoops of salted caramel in my hand, decided not to protest, and then even gave her some of mine. Spring does crazy things (wink, wink)!

Two downfalls of warm weekend outside. 1. On a Monday morning the house looks like it pretty much needs to be rebuilt from scratch. 2. I should really be going gym tonight after all the steak, barbecued sausages, roast chicken, cheese, more cheese, gazillion crisps dipped in houmous, chocolate tart with cream, toasted sandwiches, salmon bagels, ice-cream ... all washed down with quite a few glasses of vino...

Whose idea was to put Little Miss S in a skirt?! Oh, my Hubby's actually!

Friday treats

OK, so you might not get the same feeling on a Friday evening now that you are a mum (every day is a Friday!! Haha), but there is nothing stopping you from making it special! Why? Why not?!!

This is our Friday:

Today we bought this little beauty for Little Miss S



The White Company



And I bought this for the House



John Lewis Pioneer Tableware


Once Little Miss S is tucked up in bed, I'll be having a bath in this



Laura Mercier


Whilst sipping this ( brings back the memories of our wine tasting tour around France)



Pouilly Fumé AC Chatelain


Whilst The Hubby is preparing this




Moules Marinieres with pommes frites and mayo


And then I'll attempt to make these




Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Happy Friday x

My perfect little girl!

My Little Miss S now gives me a proper kiss when I say "kiss kiss". She know how to do 'round and round the garden', she loves 'head, shoulders, knees and toes', she brings me her sticker book when asked, she points to her shoes when I say "mano batai buvo du" (I had two shoes - in Lithuanian), she points at things if she wants something, she says "daddy, dog, mama", "niam niam" - when she sees food (a Lithuanian expression) and "nite nite" when she goes to bed. She loves doing 'shake shake wiggle wiggle'. She is My clever little girl. Daddy thinks she is an absolute genius. He just cannot believe how much she knows. Daddy hasn't got clue about 'development milestones', he doesn't see other toddlers at her play group. All he sees is his healthy happy child and that's all that matters. I took a leaf out of his book and started doing the same, because although your conscious mind knows that every child is different, your 'stupid' mind cannot help but compare sometimes. She is nearly 18 months or 16 and a bit corrected (she was born early). It used to be rather frustrating before she started crawling and walking, because she would 'reach her milestones' (hate this expression, it's like reaching targets at work!!) slightly later than other children of her actual age. "Oh, how old is she?", "14 months", "Oh, not walking yet?", "No, and now fuck off". Well, I wouldn't actually say that (although sometimes I would like to). I would just say "no" and leave it at that. Sometimes you just don't want to go through the whole 'she was born early' palaver. Sometimes you don't feel the need to share it with everyone (contradictory then that I write about it here, but I see this as my space). Actually, I stopped seeing my child as a premature child long time ago, if ever. Actually, I'm not a fan of word 'premature'! It is like labelling someone. I'm not a fan of word 'normal' either, because what the hell is that supposed to mean? She is just my child. My perfect girl.

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Women in your family




Multitasking

What comes to your mind when you think about those days (50s or 60s, depending on your age) when your grandmothers were bringing your parents up? Men at work, women at home? Full time mothers? Stay-at-home mothers? Domestic bliss?

For some reason we tend to believe that 'back in the day', all women stayed at home and men went out to earn the money. Alison from Not Another Mummy Blog wrote an interesting post about her fascination at the discovery that her grandmother was a working mother in the 50s and faced similar childcare issues as today's new mums.

This made me think about women in my family and actually, I've come to a realisation that I must be a first woman in our family (obviously only going back two generations) who is a stay-at-home mum (my freelance writing aside). Sounds a bit crazy to me, but yes, both my grandmothers were working mums with very successful careers and so was (and still is) my Mum who even managed to 'squeeze in' her PhD whilst I was a toddler! How do I feel about all this? Well, first of all very proud of my family. Secondly, happy with the choice I made and just grateful that I was able to do so. See, when my parents were growing up and then, when I was growing up, we had our close family nearby. Grandparents and even great-grandparents would contribute a lot to childcare. I was looked after quite often by my amazing great-grandmother when mum and dad were at work. I hated going to the nursery with a passion. My mum occasionally was able to take me to her workplace (she is a fashion designer amongst many other things) which was pure heaven for a 'little me', but on the days when she couldn't I loved nothing more than being spoilt by my great-grandmother, who was an exceptional cook (I must say her cinnamon buns beat the ones at the Nordic Bakery ). Both of my grandmothers were still working when I was a child, so they couldn't look after me through the week, but they contributed immensely on weekends and summer holidays.

For my Hubby and I the situation is very much different as we don't have any family members living within a close proximity, so had I decided to go back to the 'office', my Little Miss S would have to be in a care of someone else pretty much full time and I just couldn't do that. I know that some mums simply don't have a choice, so I do feel fortunate for not having to deal with a guilt of leaving your child behind... Well, that's one guilt less in my world of Motherhood.

Any ideas about women in Your families?

Some of life's little pleasures now that I am a mum

Watching my Little Miss S play




Chocolate Truffles for lunch




Heels. Especially wearing them




Cute little shops that sell cute little things especially for cute little girls




Dinner time with my Hubby (with lots of tasty food)




Bath with a glass of red




Nice warm slippers;)




Candles. Lots of them!

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