Emily's First Photo Shoot - and she's 2 years old!

Emily was up at 5am this morning and bounced into my room telling me to "get up!" and declared she was ready for shopping. I'd promised her last night we were going shopping today and she went straight off to sleep so the morning would come quicker. 

I thought I was brilliant of course. I'd solved the 'how to get Emily to stop wandering out of the bedroom and go the f*ck to sleep!" problem. In doing that I created the "how to get Emily to sleep past 6am" problem. I've made promises at bed time previously and although she's slept soundly all the way through, she's always up early the next morning and remembers exactly what I promised the night before. 

So up at 5am and by 7:30am this was my sookie little girl......

Of course I was in full housework mode by this time. Dishes were being done, washing was on, I was considering vacuuming the floor..... My little miss just wanted to go back to bed! 

Problem was we had a haircut booked for 9am and photo's booked for 10:30am. How the hell was I going to get her dressed and out the door by 8:30am? I know, I'll let her choose her own dress for the photo shoot! I held up a pink dress and a cream dress positive she'd choose the pink one as it's her favorite color at the moment. 

Of course she chose the cream dress.....the one that would show her spencer underneath and every bit of food and drink she consumed on the way. 

All ready to go complete with annoying bloody baby in pram and handbag over shoulder!

First up at the hairdressers and she would not let go of me. I had plans to cut her hair into a bob just above her shoulders. She refuses to let me do her hair most mornings and I'm sick of the battles so I was determined to chop it off and that way all I had to do was chase her around the house with a hair brush and not worry about tying it up. She wouldn't have a bar of it. She squirmed and cried and clung onto me like the lovely hairdresser was going to chop her head off. We couldn't even get the cape on her! I gave up and decided we would go to the cafe next door instead because mummy really needed a caffeine fix!

By this time it was 10am and she was already telling me she wanted her dummy and hippo, a clear sign she was tired. We raced to the shopping center for our free Pixie Photo's portrait sitting. 

Now I have never been a fan of Pixie Photo's I "won" this free portrait (along with a hundred other mums I suspect) and the woman on the phone convinced me to take advantage of the free offer and there was no obligation to buy. I've always thought of Pixie Photo's as the type with fairy dresses and babies sitting in terracotta pots holding sunflowers etc. Definitely not my style! I'm a plain jane, prefer the classic, hate cheesy kinda gal. 

You can still get the flower pot shots and props are still offered, however we went for the plain backgrounds and let Emily be the star. I was very impressed with the way the photographer and assistant managed to get Emily to dance and jump and lie down and look into a mirror. Now if only I could make her do things for me on command! 

A bit grainy but it is a photo of a photo. 

So while I was impressed with the photo's I wasn't surprised with the prices of their packages. Starting at $300 for 5 images, you need some serious dough for these guys! They were shooting through a family an hour so that's 8 potential photo packages a day! Even if everyone bought the base package, it's still $14,000 a week. I should have been a bloody photographer.......

Anyway, I chose my portrait (the picture above), said it was Emily's nap time and I would consider the packages and come back with my Mum next week (who'll totally buy half the images). I'm considering this gorgeous one for my bookshelf. 

Kinda glad we didn't cut the hair off now

What's a reasonable price to pay for a photo pack of your little angel/s? 

Are these pictures boring and should I get some outside pictures done when the summer comes? Should I chop her hair off or leave it alone? 

Help! 

As time goes by....

This week has gone so quickly and it's getting more and more stressful the closer we get to our trip. Hubby is complaining that we haven't saved enough money, I'm complaining that he's not showing enough admiration or support since I'm been working like a dog to make some money to put towards the trip, Emily isn't sleeping properly and is cutting her eye teeth, and all the while time is ticking by.

Today was my day off but the whole day was filled with work. I managed to get a hair appointment in early this morning but I didn't even have time for my hairdresser to dry me off before rushing out the door to pick up Emily from Mum and Dads as they had an appointment to go to. After that I made two dresses and a pair of pants for the Saturday Night Market at Beechworth.

My Nana taught me to cook as a way of keeping me out of trouble since I was such a busy little girl. She looked out for me years ago and today using her old crock pot to make spaghetti bolognaise for dinner tonight I felt like she was still looking out for me. Thanks God she left that old crock pot to me along with several other cooking utensils. At 6pm when Emily was having a meltdown and hubby came in looking for food I proudly announced dinner was made and at least that was one thing he couldn't complain about today.

Tomorrow is another full on day in the shop and I hope I remember to bank and get change for the market.

My Little Angel.....or should I say devil?

How did my perfect little sleeper turn into such a rat bag??

Today when I picked up Emily from Day Care her carer pulled me aside to inform me my darling daughter had not only not slept all day and was completely hyper, but she had to be removed from the room for being disruptive to the rest of the toddlers trying to sleep.

Surely they had gotten her mixed up with someone else? Emily has always been a great day sleeper and mostly a good night sleeper. But this is the third time in a week she's refused a day sleep.

Apparently she was fine all afternoon but getting her home tonight she was exhausted and miserable. And naughty! I keep telling her no and she just laughs at me and does it anyway.

Since when do almost 2 year olds get the upper hand?!

My little angel NOT climbing on her Daddy's office chair and playing with his new computer that he loves more than me!

I'm determined to get on top of this behavioural problem before it gets too out of hand. If anyone has any tips I'd love to hear them. We're heading to Ireland in less than three weeks now and I have to work out a way of calming her before we get there and her Nana discovers how loud her voice is! 

Feeling Better.......

Today was my first day off in 9 days and boy did I need it! I finally feel a bit better and a bit more organised. Emily slept 12 hours straight last night which meant I finally got a good nights sleep and so I just had to start this morning with a special cooked breakfast for hubby and I. Emily even had her first boiled egg this morning so after a great start I figured some shopping, visiting and cleaning were in order.

We.....

• Did the grocery shopping
• Visited Mrs Doodlebug and picked the new logo for the shop
• Did some more shopping and bought some winter pyjama's and an Elmo DVD about travelling
• Cleaned the entire house including bathrooms, windows, vacuuming and crayon removal from walls
• Colored
• Danced to the new Elmo DVD
• Made a lasagna for dinner

Now Emily is in bed, hubby is in his man cave and I am free to sit on the couch in a very clean house and blog away.

I'm trying really hard not to make my posts like an on-line diary of my daily events. I've never thought of myself as a writer but I guess that's what you do when you blog. I look at my blogging hero's to see what they do that makes them a success and there's a few things they have in common.

• They blog every day - even if it's to say their day is shit and they have no time to blog
• They're opinionated and they say what they think with no apologies
• They're open about who they are, they don't hide their identity and we all know their names.
• They always have pics, links or videos on their blogs so it's not just text
• They are social media queens and regularly post on Facebook and Twitter

I can log in at any time and see what these women were up to. Late at night I often lie in bed with my i-phone and read their blogs and they're like a bunch of friends that I get to listen to each night before I go to sleep. They have interesting things to say and they make me laugh and cry.

My blogging hero's are Woogsworld, Edenland, BabyMac and retromummy. These women are inspirational to me because apart from having kids and and doing all the wonderful and selfless things mothers do, they've actually inspired so many other women and given an outlet for many of us to express ourselves.

Can you imagine what our mothers would have blogged about back in their day?

How Was Your Day Dear?

I'm single parenting at the moment as hubby is on "a business" trip. This business trip happens to be in Coffs Harbour in a 5 star luxury resort and his room, with it's king size bed and spa, overlooks the ocean. He tells me tonight that he spent a hard morning brainstorming in an IT workshop, then spent the afternoon in the pool and got sunburnt.

I on the other hand was woken at 6am by our screaming toddler, who by the way didn't go to bed until 10pm last night! My morning shower was taken whilst Miss E had her face pressed up against it crying "Daddy" and staring at me like I could magically produce him. After getting us both dressed and breakfast, cleaning the house, doing the dishes and putting on a load of washing I had to answer a phone call from hubby just as I was about to race out the door. Apparently it's not nice to just hang up on someone who tells you they just woke up (it was 8:30am) and what a glorious sleep he had. Really? Do I GAF???

Dropping Miss E off at daycare I politely ask if they can please make sure she wakes up at 1:30pm as she hasn't been going to sleep at night and I want to tire her out so she'll go straight to bed tonight. This is followed by a lecture from the childcare worker advising me I enable her too much by giving her too many cuddles and I should just let her cry it out. She tells me they have no trouble getting her to sleep during the day. Well that's just great!

I get to work and my back room looks like a nuclear stock explosion. There is literally no room to move and so after spending the first hour rearranging I finally am able to make my way to the kitchen where I find a mouse has accidentally got caught in the trap my Dad set behind the fridge 6 months ago. I feel sorry for him. I also feel disgusted and dry retch as I pick up the trap and throw the entire thing in the bin. I'll just buy a new one, it's too much to ask me to get the thing out of there!

I go to put pictures of my new Gaia Organic Cotton Winter 2012 collection on my website and realise that my computer just wiped the shop copy of the stock images. Aaaarrrggghhh!!! Another job I'm going to have to do at home on the trusty Toshiba.

Gaia Organic Cotton Winter 2012 Preview

 After this discovery I decided to have a go at doing a new window for the shop. Originally I wanted to do a Red and White theme for Valentines Day, but my new Eternal Creation range hasn't arrived yet and so I'm having to make do with Pink and Blue. I think it still turned out pretty good.

 Anyway, picked up Miss E from childcare and found they had let her sleep for over two hours today so she was not tired at all. She also had a big scratch on her face which they couldn't tell me how it happened. This is not the first time I've had these kind of issues, however luckily we are on the waiting list for our preferred childcare centre in central Albury and hopefully soon we'll have a great place where I don't have to worry.

Tonight it took until 9pm to get Miss E off to sleep. We raced around the back yard when we got home, made dinner, had a bath, watered the garden, read books and played until she was exhausted at 7pm. Then as soon as she lied down and I turned out the light the crying game started. I ignored, painted some new shop fittings, did another load of washing, took out the garbage, checked Facebook, until I heard the whiny cry change to a distressing scream so I raced back in to find her soaked in sweat and she had vomited all down the front of her PJ's.

I cleaned her up, gave her some warm milk, cuddles and kissed her and told her it would be OK, put her back in bed and held her hand until she finally drifted off to sleep.

Then hubby called........

Seriously I couldn't give a toss how wonderful your damn resort is and how you plan to take me there one day!

Apparently it's rude to hang up on someone when there telling you how wonderful their life is when your day has been so shitty.....

How was your day?

Buggered

Tonight I would love to write and interesting, uplifting and inspiring post but honestly....I'm buggered!

5 nights of  Miss E not sleeping, me getting up driving around at 3am to get here settled only to have her wake as I pull up in the driveway, then having to get up and run my business and be happy to see customers. It's all I can do to stop the tears rolling down my face right now.

I'm fortunate to have someone fantastic working for me. She's turned into a friend as well as an employee and without her this week I'd be lost (thank you JT). She's taken care of all the incoming stock, phone orders and even took some awesome photo's of shop.

These are Bungy Buddie by Squiggle Pop

We took Miss E to the ENT this morning and we were told that all was OK, she just has an ear infection that's taking a little longer than normal to clear up and she was prescribed ear drops (which hubby forgot to get on his way home grrrr!) which will, according to the doctor, be like a nuclear bomb on the infection and make it all better.

For now I am off to bed and going to get as much rest as possible before the next wave of crying and wrestling over getting painkillers into Miss E starts. I keep reminding myself.......tomorrow is a new day.