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Returning to Work, Expressing Breastmilk and Products I Use on my Breastfeeding Journey [AD]

[This post was written as part of my paid brand ambassadorship with Philips Avent and contains content about items that have been gifted to me for an honest review.  I’m so pleased to announce that I am one of Avent’s Virtual Mummy Mentors!] When my daughter, Vita, was born last November I knew two things: 1. that I wanted to breastfeed 2. that I needed to be able to return to work when Vita was two weeks old (When I mention my decision to return to work so swiftly after giving birth, people are always shocked. So let me take a moment to mention now that my babies are left in the arms of their loving mother, my partner Kirsty, who is the SAHM in our family. They don’t suffer a bit. And let me mention also that although I’m not coerced back to work and my employers are extremely… View Post

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The Truth About Having FIVE Children [AD]

[This content was produced in collaboration with Center Parcs, as a part of their #thisisfamily campaign.  In lieu of payment we have accepted a short break.] It is the middle of the night. Again. The world is almost silent, punctuated by the baby’s soft suckling noises and the rhythmic purr of the breastpump. These quiet two-am feeds are my favourite, a rare opportunity to focus my attention solely on the baby, but tonight I am distracted, I am working again. The iPhone in my hand emits a soft glow, illuminating my daughter’s face. She is such a little thing, her cheek against my breast, her face peaceful. Beside me, my partner is sleeping. Her hair is a dark sprawl across my pillow. Were my hands not full, I would play with it – I like to be touching her, always, when we are together. It makes people laugh. But I… View Post

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This is Family [AD]

[This content was produced in collaboration with Center Parcs, as a part of their #thisisfamily campaign.  In lieu of payment we have accepted a short break.] My biggest adventure was having you. All my life, I wanted you. I wanted you fiercely, bloodily; I wanted you so desperately that I was afraid to voice my longing for you, in case somebody heard it and took you away. Even now, I can write you a love letter but I choke aloud on the words that I could say about you; how much I miss you, when I am here in the house with you only when you sleep. I have built a life that is rich and plentiful. There are friends: friends with whom once I shared a desk and rehearsed lines for plays, who know what I was like fifteen years ago and marvel that I am still alive; friends… View Post

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A Morning in Shoreditch with the iCandy Peach [AD]

[This post contains images and information about our iCandy Peach.  We were gifted an iCandy Peach in exchange for an interview on the IC Life Blog (yet to be released) however we have not been paid to write about the brand, and we were not asked to feature our iCandy Peach on Meet the Wildes.] Slowly, slowly, we are beginning to find our feet as a family of seven. She came home from the hospital in a stretchy wrap, cuddled tight against her mother’s beating heart.  And I – shaken and stunned, stitched-up, heart full to bursting with shock and with love – shuffled along beside them with wide eyes and trickles of blood snaking down my legs.  And I took the bus home like that.  Two buses, actually.  And then a little walk from the bus stop to our home where I stood – wobbled, really – because I… View Post

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Sugar Mice and All Things Nice with Embla and Olympia

Two-and-a-half is a magical age. One moment they are all defiance and independence, “my do it”, bringing me my shoes and brushing my hair and waving me off at the front door, and the next moment there are fingers shut in doors and great gulping sobs, and their bodies still curl up so small when they are cradled in my arms.  I look at them sometimes and I can see who they will be, in ten years’ time, in twenty, and I am full of awe and wonder at the tremendous humans that are slowly unfurling within my girls.  And there are other times, when their breathing is soft and they have brought me a ‘manket’ and tucked us all up, and just in that moment they are exactly my babies again. They remind me so much of my sister and I. We are not twins, there are two years… View Post

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