"Will The Mother of the Filthy Baby Please Stand Up?"

7 months old and already a curtain twitcher!

This morning at the pharmacy as I mentally wrestled over the difference between two cans of dry shampoo (one of which promised extra root volume in small letters, and the other in large letters - but costing 50p more?!) I was jolted out of my reverie by a kindly older black woman.

"Aw, just look at your baby...that's how babies should look!"

I wondered idly whether she might be referring to Bang-Bang's green eyes, or his cute smile or even his wacky wavy hair.  But no such luck.

She continued, "Never mind all them babies that look so perfect...what you want is a baby with  big ol' cheeks and enjoying his food!"

I sighed, and peeked over into my Phil & Ted's to confirm that yes, my baby was absolutely filthy - as was his pushchair.  The remains of a newly smuggled back from Canada, super gooey, Arrowroot biscuit were covering Bang-Bang's cheeks, hands, blanket and pushchair in general.

I smiled graciously (I am, by the way, terribly good at that) and said, "Yes, well...he loves to eat.  So..."

I got the heck out of there, wondering vaguely whether it would be pushing it to do the school run later without changing or bathing him, or whether I even cared.  I decided I didn't.

You see, I have bigger things on my mind.  One of which is my utter inability to "catch up to my life" since having a baby.

A week ago we got back from a summer spent in Toronto, Canada visiting family on our (up until now) annual visit back.  It was exhausting, but nice.

You might ask how I never managed to write more than one measly blog post the whole time I was there, but I assure you, it just didn't (and couldn't!) happen.  There was ALWAYS something that needed doing, someone who needed visiting, an email that needed to be written, a bill that needed to be paid, a baby that needed to be fed/bathed/cared for.

And so it is with some trepidation (and a lot of shamefacedness) that I humbly ask you, my blog readers (assuming there are any of you left?!), whether you will forgive this gigantic lapse, and allow me the pleasure of continuing to vent/complain/share/generally moan about whatever it is I am want to go on about, and pretend like I haven't just been a stereotypical 'new mum' - totally obsessed with new motherhood third time around, and things like the bowel movements and chubby toes of a newly hatched little Squit.

In the coming days I will attempt to bring you up to speed on life as I (now) know it, as well as a few of the more torturous/humorous tidbits from our summer abroad.  And yes, they probably paint me in a bad light.  But I'm okay with that.

But now I have to decide whether to:
a) go and see whether Egg is still watching the baby or has lost interest and now watching Scooby-Doo
b) unpack, sort and fold the clothes from our trip, languishing for over a week now in our guest bedroom
c) make my 3rd cappuccino of the day on our new, recently purchased 'old school' chrome espresso maker (bliss)

Hmmm...