If this is your first time visiting, hi and welcome and for those of you who are old friends, thanks for coming back and sorry its been so long.
So let me go back a little to when I disappeared from my 'Cosy Cup of Life' space, almost 18 months ago now. In a nutshell, life took over. If you're a parent I'm sure you get this and I don't have to go on (but I'm a rambler so I will). I was heading back to work after my second round of maternity leave and life just all got a bit fuzzy and I definitely didn't have the "balance" we so often aspire to as working parents. I read an amazing article recently about how there's a period if time, usually in your thirties, when you have young children and you lose yourself for a little while. I can completely relate to this and 18 months ago when I stopped blogging I had definitely lost myself a little. If I'm honest its only recently that this fog seems to be lifting and I'm remembering who I am. When I went back to work just over a year ago, for me it was about making things work for everyone else - your children in their new childcare, making sure the house still ticks when you're not around to do the things that usually just get done and then there's fitting back into the working environment and making sure your boss believes that you 'have this' - its no problem. Somewhere in a amongst this (and for the first 12 months of being back to work) I was just glad if everyone was in the right place at the right time and were happy and if my stuff had to take a backseat then so be it - I'd get back to it eventually. And a lot of that stuff is the superficial stuff like buying yourself some new work clothes so you feel abit more put together and a bit less like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, or getting your hair coloured. But its so often those little things which can make a world of difference to your confidence, not just as a mum but as a woman. So yeah, I definitely was lost and had known this for a while. A quote posted on Instagram recently by one of my favourite bloggers, Alison from Not another mummy blog really resonated with me. It said "I nurture myself so that I can nurture others". This couldn't have rung truer to me. And this is what I have started to do. Its not coming easily as there is always mummy guilt and a million other things beside doing something for yourself, that you could be doing, but I'm getting there, which leads me (in a very long winded way) here- back blogging. Its something I love doing. Its almost a way of escaping and processing things that are going on but its also a way of reflecting and realising just how lucky I am and to not take the small daily things for granted. On a lighter note I also love creating a digital scrapbook of me and my little family's lives. So here goes, what have we been up to lately...
Lucas is now 6 and Charlotte is 2 and boy have they changed since the last time we spoke.
Lucas started school and has just finished his first year and what a proud mamma I am. For the most part he took it in his stride, as I knew he would (even though on that first morning when I waved him off from the playground my heart was in my throat as he took his first real step of independence in the world).
And Charlotte, well where do I start. As she has become a little girl rather than a baby she is definitely no shrinking violet and gives us all a run for our money on pretty much a daily basis. She is fiercely independent which I kind of love and is fearless, with a cheeky sense of humour. This fearless nature of hers is quite a challenge for me as its unchartered territory. Lucas has always been quite a timid little boy and always airs on the side of caution, sometimes to his detriment. But with Charlotte she goes at life full force and I just try and keep up and catch the falls.
Anyway, there's plenty time for us to catch up properly, but for now I just wanted to say hi and that 'A Cosy Cup of Life' is back - I hope you'll join us for the ride.
In the meantime here's a few more of my favourite pics from over the last year or so.
Eilidh
x
