Happy birthday Essex Mums!

Essex Mums is one today!

I've been meaning to post this since this morning but just got round to it. As it's so late in the day I'm just going to copy some of the info I sent out to the local papers etc.

The Essex Mums forum (www.essexmums.org) will be celebrating its first birthday on March 12th. We have come a long way since it started and have hopes of achieving more in the next year.

I started the site after moving to Westcliff last February and having trouble finding out what was going on and where. A bit of research made me realise that there were many other Mums out there experiencing the same problem, all looking to make friends and find things to do with their kids, but often a bit too shy to try new things on their own, and uncertain as to what was happening near them. I wanted it to be a place where Mums (and Dads) could come and chat about their days, exchange experiences of being a parent and help one another, as well as sharing information about what was worth doing (and what to avoid!)

When the site started, it took off rather rapidly as friends told friends and word spread. In the first fortnight we had over fifty people join, which at the time seemed amazing to me. In the first month I was interviewed by the Evening Echo, Southend Radio and BBC Essex which helped get the news out further. Suddenly I went from refreshing the page every five minutes, hoping someone else would post something to seeing new names appear all the time, and not being able to keep up with all the activity. Now, nearly a year later we have over 850 members (an average 2.5 new recruits a day!) from all over Essex. Some post every day and enjoy just chatting to one another, some post now and then when they get a chance, others just pop in to find out about things that are going on.

We have had lots of meet-ups, from very popular ones last summer at Wat Tyler Park, through numerous visits to soft play centres to a couple of people meeting up here and there when they fancy something to do. We have just started organising regular coffee mornings every week and are hoping to have a good turn out for our first birthday party at Partyman World on Monday March 16th. We have had new babies, numerous pregnancies (even leading to talk of there being Essex Mums baby dust!) and many good friends have been made - this has been the most wonderful thing about it all to me, seeing people get to know each other and go from mere acquaintances to real, solid friends. Of course the kids love meeting up with each other too, and it's been lovely to see them all grow - hopefully we will continue to see this for years to come.

So thanks everyone who is a member - you're all great and have made the site what it is!

Link to the article in the Yellow Advertiser

Just some pics

I took a load of pictures of Felix on Wednesday and they came out really nicely, I think. He was looking handsome, was in a great mood, loved hamming it up for the camera, and the light was great - a perfect combination. There followed a terrible night of teething and a pretty miserable day, so I'm posting these now so that I can easily reference them should another such a night be just round the corner... which it may be.

And to show them off, of course.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Rob and Lucy came to visit this weekend just gone - realised we hadn't seen them in about a year! It was very nice and we did our usual trip to Southend's most interesting haunts, ha ha - normally a combination of the beach, Adventure Island, Rossi's, walking along the seafront or Old Leigh. It wasn't really Old Leigh weather, plus we couldn't really sit and have a pint, so we had a few rides at Adventure Island, a quick wander to the beach then stopped at Rossi's for ice-cream - always my favourite part of the day. Felix went on one of the rides - he wasn't sure but was persuaded by it being a train, then kept saying "Choo choo" in a very quiet voice as we went round and round. He wasn't very keen on Kester going on 'Rage' - probably the scariest ride there - I think he was actually quite worried for him and said "No no no! Daddy! Nooo!" as he saw Kester getting on it.

Gah, I've been useless at updating this week. It's just seemed like a really busy week, though I have no idea why as I'm sure I didn't do all that much! Will try to do a quick catch-up of the week.

Went up to London on Sunday afternoon to meet Steph etc. at the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. Rozzie and Darren were over - we haven't seen them since before we went to Chicago so it was really nice to catch up. Felix kept Roz on the move at all times - he seemed particularly fond of her which was very sweet. There ended up being a pretty good turnout, and while it wasn't quite the Sunday drinking of yore, what with me being pregnant, Kester driving, and us having Felix with us, it was a lovely afternoon. It's funny, while I tend to think of everyone in London as being at a different stage to us at the moment - no-one else is married or has kids, and here's us nearly with two - it's always so nice, and kind of reassuring to catch up with them. Like, we may have very different lifestyles at the moment, but the bond is still there, and it's strong. I just wish we could convince them to move to Essex!












Felix hasn't been well this week. Just a cold, but he's really been suffering with it. It's meant some nice long naps, but a lot of grumpiness and clinginess. Add that to me being a bit of an emotional wreck and we've had a few fraught moments. However, it also meant that he was really cuddly and one day even sleepy enough to fall asleep in my arms on the sofa - something he hasn't done for months, maybe even a year! It was so adorable, I didn't want to move and ended up sitting in the dark for about an hour! Even though he's been a snotbucket, he's still managed to look cute:


He's had a bit of a verbal explosion this week. Felix has a big one-word vocabulary (I've counted well over 100 words) and has been combining two or three words for a while, though generally really simple things like "Bye Bye Daddy", "Thank you Mummy", "Hello Dinger", "One more" etc.

These last few weeks though he has just been talking non stop in sentences. They're often hard to understand fully, you might get a word or two, but he gets a bit agitated and frantic trying to explain what he means while we look at him slightly baffled. It's so cute just hearing him babble away and knowing he's trying so hard to make us understand. Some of my favourites from this week have been:

"Crisps are on the plate over there" (this one took us ages to get and he was waving his arms around frantically trying to get us to understand him.)

F: "Nanny?" L: "Nanny is coming round tomorrow. F "Oh! Nanny one more day? Okay?"

(up at the window) "Snow? No snow? No snow no more." (he checks every day to see if there's snow).

and finally: "Here I am!". He's been repeating it for a while because it's in a Spot book he loves, but has just started applying it to himself when playing Peekaboo or something. He uses it when he pops out from somewhere to surprise you, but also when arriving somewhere or when he finds a lost toy. It's adorable.#


I took him to a Jo Jingles class on Friday, which was a lot of fun. He wasn't sure at first and sat on my knee, strangely quiet for him, but by the end of the session was charming the other mums and sitting on their knees instead. He enjoyed playing with the maracas in particular and was especially good at getting the instruments and putting them away. Aw, I was very proud. Looking forward to going back next week!

Nann-eeeee!

Felix was lucky enough to see his Nanny and Grandad twice this week, which I think was probably the best thing that he could have imagined. Mum very kindly came round a couple of times to help me out with my current immobility, and of course Felix was absolutely thrilled. Today they did some good Play-Dohing, and Felix generally spent the afternoon following her around.




Then when Grandad got here earlier than normal, he couldn't believe his luck. Much chasing and squealing ensued, before settling down with some books.


Felix is a bit of a book-fiend at the moment actually - he has five or six favourites that get read every day at least twice. I love that he's so enthuasiastic but it can be difficult to drum up the enthusiasm to read the same book over and over and over and over....


I haven't posted much this week because we haven't really done much, but I like these pictures from dinner yesterday and Kester's faux apple teeth. The one of Felix screwing up his eyes is because he was preparing for the flash to go off. It made me laugh though.




It's been pretty tough work this week chasing round after the boy with the aches and pains, but he's generally been great. I may be imagining it but he seems super-helpful this week and I'm wondering if he actually understands more of what's going on than I would have thought. A few times when I've told him I can't do something because it hurts, he'll do it for me, and when he's fighting going for a nap, he seems to settle after I tell him I need a rest too. I'm sure it's just wishful thinking, but it's nice anyway! Perhaps he's taking the advice from one of his current favourite books, about helping Mummy get some rest because she has a 'house' inside her to grow the baby in...

Speaking of newborns, I had the pleasure of meeting little 6 week old William on Monday at the Essex Mums coffee morning. I meant to post about it earlier in the week but didn't get round to it. Holding a newborn was quite weird - he was so tiny, and I'd forgotten the funny little noises they make, the way they don't keep still and look at you really intently. Aww. Good to get some practise in though! There was a great turn-out at the meet though, and a good time was had by all, I think. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves too, which is always a bonus.