I’m deep in the throes of motherhood at the moment. Our daughter is now 11 months old and she is soon to be unexpectedly joined by a little brother in a couple of months time!
We got rid of everything newborn after a couple of months of having Amber so we have pretty much had to think about Moses baskets and newborn clothes and next to me cribs (with my daughter I co-slept but I’d like to let our little boy have his own space and have a little more space for myself this time around… or at least have the option! If he is wriggly as he is right now in my belly I’ll be truly grateful of my own space haha).
Once again I’ve been diagnosed with the dreaded Gestational Diabetes and as of last week I’ve begun injecting slow release overnight insulin. For everyone that has to inject themselves or test their blood sugars I salute you; it’s not easy. It’s even harder when you’re sleep deprived due to baby teething and have pregnancy brain fog. Just remembering to test an hour after food and injecting the insulin at the same time each night when our daughter comes first and is demanding bedtime or a bottle (or both) is a challenge! But with only 8 weeks to go now, I am confident only 56 days of finger pricking and injections will pass quite quickly.
When I had Amber, I recall leading up to her birth and especially just afterwards wishing I’d got a planner setup ready and being utilised. The amount of appointments leading up to and after birth is crazy. And that’s in between family and friends wanting to meet new baby… and life stuff. Hindsight is a wonderful thing; but having been there before, I decided to start organising a new planner set up.
Before this decision (and perhaps an influencing factor), we had been researching double prams… because you know… 2 under 14months… practicality wins hands down haha! We decided on a Bugaboo Donkey but damn they look so boring, dark and flimsy! Luckily I found someone on Etsy that does custom work and anyone who knows me, knows I like to put my own stamp on things. So I set to work designing my own hoods, liners and footmuffs with gusto. But when it came, my buldging, battered pram bag looked far too shabby for the new pretty pram… so I decided to look for a new, slightly more glam way of toting around all of my daughters things (and although people say you carry less as they get older I have found I’m carrying more – the usual bottles, change of clothing, muslin cloths, extra dummies, calpol, gripe water, changing facilities, blankets etc… but now we are also carrying toys, food, sippy cups, cutlery, silicone bibs and snacks as she’s now on solids alongside bottles). As well as my daughters items, I’ll be shortly be taking my newborn sons bits and pieces around too. So I needed a new and larger bag. Something organised too; as I’ve found quite quickly that nappy bags can get disorganised very quickly!
I’m not normally one for backpacks so I pulled out my old sturdy LV Neverfull tote and at the moment I’ve got it stuffed to the brim with Ambers items. As well as that, a Speedy 30 is serving as a “Pram Caddy”, holding all of mine and my partners essentials as well as a couple of milk bottles in the felt liner and anything we think might be handy.
However… the lure of the practical backpack was overpowering and I can feel myself giving in to an LV Palm Springs bag; especially as we will not have the (oh so handy) side basket on the pram for much longer and the thought of sacrificing under basket storage and putting the tote bag on its side (of course, I can just see everything spilling out everywhere) and being splashed by mud constantly is too painful for me to imagine.
Anyway; huge digression there! With my love of the LV monogram bags in full force, I have purchased an LV Monogram MM size agenda from DHGate (I mean, Maternity Pay sucks and I have enough to pay out in the preparation for this little lad so real luxury items are unfortunately on the back burner for the next 18 years… am I right?!). When it arrived I was actually so disappointed because the ring diameter was 16mm!
I wound up purchasing a gold 30mm ring size clear plastic binder from Amazon and then de-ringing the planner and getting my partner Tony to drill holes for the 30mm rings to fit in.
I then purchased inserts from Cute Organising on Etsy and I had some custom tabs created from appleblushdesigns on Etsy which I’m super happy with!
If anyone has any suggestions on how to get about stylishly with a newborn and a 1 year old of different genders – please let me know as the bag situation has got me flummoxed right now!
All the best
Kel
Xxx
The Pocket Diaries 