Crazy? Guilty as charged

"Oh my god, these people are nuts".

I went hunting for my Kindle charger this morning. I looked on the floor where all of our other chargers are plugged in (iPhone charger, telephone charger, baby monitor charger, etc). Anyway, no Kindle charger. 

I check the dining table, no charger, then I check the bench, also no charger. Then I spot it, in the vase on the bench tangled in with the stems of the paper flowers. I tell Noisy Daddy: "I found it in the vase". He replies defensively: "Well it was on the floor". Yes, because that makes perfect sense. This is what happens when two people with two very different and, ahem, somewhat unconventional, filing systems live together. 

Poor Stickybeak, he is going to have to learn to navigate this crazy on a daily basis.

Meet the mummies

Friends for more than a decade, as luck would have it Hannah and Natalie found themselves on maternity leave at the same time. Hannah with two littlies and Natalie with one. All boys.

Considering they have been work mates and flatmates they decided it was high time they took their friendship to the next level and became blog mates, a place where their work and home lives collide. Here at What Mummy Did Hannah and Natalie share the highs and lows of parenthood.

Of course all good things come to end, and so it is with maternity leave. Thankfully life can't always be about solids and sleep routines so in their spare time they go to work, actual paying work, just for funsies. Natalie is the entertainment editor for SMH online and she tweets at @baconchips; Hannah is online trafficking/marketing/extraordinaire for tech publisher IDG and can be found at @theonlyhanban.

Meet the bubbies

We took the kidlings along to check out the opening of a new Ikea in our area. There was promise of free meatballs and an Abba tribute band. We got neither of these things but we did get a pic of our boys together which was made into a mock Ikea catalogue cover.
Can you believe that in an age where we all have digital cameras on our phones it took a trip to Ikea to make a group shot happen? Sad but true.

Here are, in order of appearance, Hannah's Dream Baby and Cheeky Monkey, and the little guy on the end is Natalie's Stickybeak.

Our Boys

Meet the hubbies

Our partners in crime, our right-hand men, our knights in shining armour. Without them we would be too elbow-deep in dirty nappies to ever have time to update this blog. Actually, without them we most likely would be still single, childless, still living together drinking too much wine, watching too much TV and eating too much chocolate. Sounds hideous doesn't it? ;)
They are both a little bit shy and prefer to remain anonymous on this blog but rest assured they are working hard in the background.

Daddy Day Care

On the left is Hannah's hubby Geek Dad and on the right is Natalie's partner Noisy Daddy. Both highly deserving of their online monikers, but more on that later.

So there you have it - the team. We would love to hear about your family, so join us and let's all share the experience together. As they say, crazy shared is .... well even more crazy! And what is not to love about that?

Currently loving: Bonds Zip Wondersuit

 Zip = Awesome

I just want to say, how good are zips? I probably always thought they were pretty good but since having a baby I have upped them to awesome status. Not enough baby clothes come with zips. Buttons thankfully are a thing of the past but those bloody press studs still reign supreme. After months, MONTHS, of struggling to do up a dozen press studs multiple times a day it was time to call it quits. We gradually phased them out, first they moved just to night times but once Stickybeak could sit up we gave up on them altogether.

But I am partial to a onesie (Noisy Daddy is too, he keeps saying he wants one for himself and I think he might be serious) they are pretty cute and are perfect for winter. I spotted the Bonds Zip Wondersuit during a recent trip to Big W and I couldn't resist. Turns out it is perfect, easy to do up (the zip is already connected), the fabric is thick and fluffy and he looks cute as a button.

I'm about to buy some more and just noticed that Bonds has a special deal on them at the moment, two for $30. The Dymples brand, which is also available at Big W, has zip onesies too that come in newborn sizes. Fabulous! All hail the zip I say!

Dimply goodness

I wonder what it is about dimples that makes us love them so much. They are just indentations in the skin, if anything they are an imperfection. But I love them, especially on babies - who doesn't enjoy seeing a dimply, chubby baby?

One out of two ain't bad either; what Stickybeak lacked in the chubba department he has more than made up for with his dimples. Aside from the dimples that appear on his cheeks when he smiles -- which is utterly charming if I do say so myself -- he also has others in quite unexpected places. My favourite at the moment are the dimples on his hands where his knuckles should be. Sooooooo cute.

Here they are in all their glory, the little fingers and the crease between the hand and wrist are pretty cute too :)



One day the knuckles will grow bigger and those dimples will disappear so I am taking this moment to appreciate them while they last.

Do you have a thing for the knuckle dimples too? Any idea how long they last?

-- Natalie

Making a heel of myself

Trying flats on for size. photo credit: photo pin cc

When Stickybeak was in daycare the other day I decided to use my free time to do something that I hadn't indulged in for a long time -- I got out my high heels.

Nothing fancy, just my pair of everyday runaround heels that I pretty much wore to death before I had a baby. They are a moderate height (I gave up the skyscrapers long before the super skyscrapers became the fashion du jour) and I thought they were a good choice to get me reacquainted with my more feminine self.

What a mistake that turned out to be. Walking in them no longer felt natural and more than that, I felt like a fraud. It reminded me of the times when I would steal into my mother's closet, put on her heels and walk around in circles on the foyer tiles to get the clacking sound. Thirty years later I was a little girl playing at being a woman all over again except without the fun. The balls of my feet soon started to ache and the act of walking was all a bit too hard. I had ducked up the shops to just get a few items and I soon pared back my list of things to do because it required walking too far. How limiting.

So it wasn't quite the boost to my self image that I imagined. Rather than feeling glamorous and together instead I felt like mutton dressed up as lamb. How did it come to this? Before baby I wore heels to work nearly everyday, I even clung on to a low heel for the first few months of my pregnancy until lower back pain made me give them up (now all of the maternity-wear ads of women in their last trimester wearing enormously high heels really shit me).

I'm going back to work in a few weeks and I realise it won't be as simple as digging out my old work wardrobe. Flat shoes will be bought (well, flattish) and pants will be taken up. No doubt heels will slowly creep back into my life but for now I appreciate that they feel as ridiculous as they are (and they are). It also makes these images all the more farcical:

Victoria Beckham carrying baby Harper in New York. Yikes. (Zimbio)

An ad for a maternity dress, which is like most ads for maternity clothes.

An ad for the Mountain Buggy Swift pram, it's oh so realistic. 

Have you had to give up on heels too?

-- Natalie