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4. Changing Rooms

It's taken me nearly eight months to discover that I find the slight crackly white noise of  a baby monitor both incredibly creepy (too much X-files) and really quite soothing (really too much X-files). I've not had much use for one before because we live in a flat and Isabella  has been sleeping in our room.

That is up until two nights ago when moved her into her own wee room. (It is easily my favourite room in the house probably because it is tidy and there is a giant aqua lion on the wall.) I tried to kid myself on that I wasn't anxious about it at all about it but considering that I manage to wake myself up out of much needed slumber to obsessively check on her several times a night, it wasn't really working.

It turns out that all my worrying was for nothing and despite her having a cold we all had the best nights sleep we've had in ages. I was waking her up when I woke up to check on her and funnily enough having her a bit further away I only woke up when she woke up in the morning listening to her on the monitor talking the ear off her toys and a rather large aqua lion

3. Ridiculously attached to inanimate objects

Last week Isabella was 6 months old and it's left me feeling rather sentimental to the extent that I upgraded my phone and I was feeling really rather sad about giving up my old one.It may sound like a pretty silly thing to be sad about but it had been my constant companion through my pregnancy, Isabella's birth and beyond.

It kept me company when I spent the majority of my pregnancy gripped by bad morning (noon and night) sickness and spent countless hours sitting on the toilet floor either waiting to spew or for the nausea to pass. It helped me stay awake during every night feed when ever bone in my body was aching with weariness and I just wanted to sleep. Got me the right information when I couldn't get Isabella to latch on properly and I was fighting her for a week and was so knackered I couldn't remember what the right way to do it anyway. It provided a lifeline, a small connection to the outside world when I was spending almost all my time breastfeeding and felt like I was glued to the sofa.

Being a new mum can be an incredibly isolating experience your life changes completely over night: you have a beautiful, awe-inspiring new person who is completely dependent on you and it's the hardest work you've ever done on a smaller amount of sleep than you've ever considered possible. It's suddenly hard to leave the house both because there was so much stuff to take with you and I became incredibly anxious about even the smallest things and stressed when I couldn't settle her while we were out and about. I spent most of my time at home, feeding and not able to go very far - I couldn't go on my computer and I couldn't read while feeding (a skill I've now developed) and I probably didn't have the excess brain power as I seemed to almost get a fog on the brain while feeding so my phone became my main source of information, entertainment and my connection to the world outside

It's all different now she's bigger, bonnier and coming out of tiny babyhood and I don't feel anxious about taking her outside any more and I can read a book and breastfeed -even if I still feel like I've got a bit of brain fog - and she mostly sleeps through the night. So I'm a wee bit sad to be giving up a friend that helped me through an amazing but hard time but glad to be out the other side where it's a wee bit easier and more fun and wondering where the hell the past 6 months went.

2. Want, Want, Want

This t-shirt is fantastic - there are loads of lovely ones on that website actually - and the Master and Margarita is one of my favourite ever books. I do need to stop just impulsively buying things on the internet though. I should probably hint at Husband but though he is wonderful in many respects he is a bit rubbish at being hinted at.

1. It's good to remember I have a name.

My daughter is six months old on Tuesday and I'm starting to remember that I'm Lori as well as Mama. There is some small space and time for half-awake stumbling me time. The past six months have been wonderful and I am honestly the happiest I've ever been and there has been a lot of awe and wonder but also a lot of anxious moments, crazy hormones and a little bit of pain. So It's nice to get to  a place where I've got a little bit of time to sit and reflect and to just be me. I've just started reading for pleasure again in addition to books on babies and scouring the internet on my phone at 4 am for information on cloth nappies trying to stay awake during a feed.

I've been thinking I needed a new place to put my thoughts, that is when I remember I have thoughts at all beyond 'feed-sleep-washing-huh-what-can-i-go-back-to-sleep-now?' I will probably use this as a place to talk about what I'm enjoying at the moment in terms of pop culture, post the odd recipe or two and I will almost certainly use it to talk about my life as a mother. I've quite wanted to write something about giving birth but I've never really had a space where I've felt comfortable doing it so the plan is to do a post on that fairly soon.

Also I will almost certainly post photos of a really fucking cute baby.