Pregnancy thoughts…

I’m sitting in the bath as a write this. Downstairs, my children are playing, somewhat (but not entirely) oblivious to the tragedy unfolding in the world around them; tragedy much, much closer to home than when we were living in South Africa. All of a sudden, living in England has really hit home.

We’ve been talking about the attacks on Kyiv and the rest of the Ukraine for days, now. Pete and I have done our best to explain to the girls, in as age-appropriate a manner as possible, what is going on. They listen and they ask questions, but how can they ever imagine us having to escape across borders, lugging two dogs and a suitcase if we’re lucky, leaving daddy behind in the hope he can fight for something for us to return to? In fact, I hope they never have to fully imagine that. In this case, the case of my privileged brain, sympathy is better than empathy. I wish to bring up open-minded children, but, perhaps naïvely, I hope to do so without them experiencing any true horror of their own.

Photo from NBC news

In other news, the baby kicked Pete through my stomach last night. I’m almost 20 weeks (almost halfway!) so that seems a bit early – until one factors in that my dear stomach muscles were torn apart by my youngest daughter (diastasis recti) so there isn’t a lot between baba and the wide world. This pregnancy is going extremely quickly! I’m planning on doing a couple of pregnancy shoots in the coming 8-10 weeks or so, which should be exciting!

I also completed my charity fundraiser for the Teenage Cancer Trust today – 2,800 squats in the month of Feb. Thankfully, squats are good for pregnancy, and I honestly feel great afterwards (plus, the money we raised for the charity makes me feel good, too!) thanks to anyone who donated and shared. I’ll pop a link in for anyone wishing to donate now I’m done – or click here.

This week is World Book Day. Stevie is fast turning into an avid reader (which is fascinating for someone who was basically illiterate at the beginning of y1) and she has decided to make a Hermione Granger model from a kitchen roll inside. It’s amazing! Elia, to our chagrin, decided to make Peppa Pig. I hate that damn pig!

Finally, the Osmosis Beauty trial is going really well. 5 mins in the morning and approximately 1 minute in the evening and my skin looks refreshed and blemish-free! I’m in love ❤️

https://www.facebook.com/donate/222568356746299/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Here We Go Again…

We must be mad. After an unprecedented visa overstay, a ‘holiday’ to the U.K. which turned out to be a permanent (for now) move, buying ourselves a little house, getting our dogs home, getting the kids into school and just getting back to normal, we’ve finally managed it – I’m pregnant again!

It’s been a whirlwind couple of years for family Bolton. But falling pregnant really is the icing on the cake. We have wanted this baby for quite a while, now. It felt like, the first two pregnancies, Pete sneezed on me and I fell pregnant and that was that. But with this one, things took a little bit longer – a year longer, to be precise. Clear Blue ovulation sticks and the app My Pregnancy became my best friend. Studying nursing (did I forget to mention that bit? That’s for another post) gave me a really handy module on the human reproductive system which helped greatly. But, honestly, we were just about to throw in the towel and admit we were doing just dandy with our two beautiful, healthy little girls – and, of course, that always happens, doesn’t it? The moment you relax and stop trying, you fall pregnant. So we did.

Trying my best to hide the burgeoning bump before 12 weeks

The first trimester was horrendous – far worse than Stevie (who made me a bit sick) or Elia (who didn’t make me sick at all), and for some obscure kind of reason I thought it a good idea to sign up to do a 50-burpee-per-day challenge for charity. What a terrible idea! But I feel much better now; the typical second trimester happiness is upon me, and I can’t wait to meet our new little addition in the summer. Although, I don’t think anyone is as excited as the girls – Stevie did a full presentation to her class to tell them!

Banana Bread? Yes, Please

Baking. It’s all anybody seems to be planning to do, isn’t it? Judging by the lack of flour on the shelves, at any rate. But what, exactly, to bake? We’ve made gazillions of cupcakes throughout the last few years (and still, believe it or not, I suck at them). We’ve done sponge. We made brownies the other day. What’s guaranteed to be eaten, and tasty?

Well, banana bread, of course. Filling, simple, with one of your five a day – what’s not to love? I found a recipe on Pinterest using 4 very ripe bananas (my kids never want bananas when we have tons of them… strange little beings) and changed it a bit to suit us.

We used

• 4 ripe bananas (we like them browning for cooking)
• 45g melted butter
• 100g sugar
• 1 egg, pre beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla paste
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Generous dash of salt
• 200g plain flour
• Generous handful chopped Brazil nuts
• 3 rows of Dairy Milk (from the sharing size bar)

We used the Aga, and I slightly miscalculated the heat of the ovens – next time, I’ll use the bottom one, but for standard ovens, 180 is recommended. Preheat it before you start – not something I had to worry about!

I got the girls to mash the bananas and the melted butter together, then we added all the dry ingredients, flour last, then the nuts and chocolate chips (some may have escaped – into tiny mouths or large ones? Who knows… shush). It’s really that simple – then just pour into a bread pan, cook for 45-60 mins (until a skewer comes out clear) and Bob’s your Uncle.

We decided to use our daily exercise allowance to take the banana bread on a picnic in the field next to the house – with some Dairy Milk spread, too, of course!

What to do in Quarantine

Since both the U.K. and South Africa are in, essentially, full ‘lockdown’ now (movement restricted, shops and businesses closed), I’ve decided to dedicate a few posts as promised to what it is we, as a family, are doing to stay sane during this extended quarantine.

First things first, we have to acknowledge how incredibly lucky we are right now. As I said in my last post, my in-laws’s home is not a bad place to be quarantined – second only to being at home. I know most people probably won’t have easy access to the space that we have, and I can’t claim it as my own so this is in no way a smug post. What I can do is share ideas which have worked for us, and which can, hopefully, work in smaller spaces, too.

My mother-in-law, since she moved to this house 20 years ago, has become a keen gardener. She’s had the girls helping her with doing the borders – if you have a balcony, terrace, or even a big, sunny windowsill, this is definitely possible.

She’s given me a tutorial in the best things to plant for little kids – they can get their hands dirty AND make the place look lovely! Kids love knowing they’ve been involved with something they can see; they love feeling proud.

Firstly, please, don’t be put off if you only have a sunny window. Secondly, you may think that, in quarantine, you can’t find seeds etc, but most can be found either at your local supermarket or on Amazon. Finally, these are super purse friendly, even after all the corona virus nightmares. If you don’t have a plant pot, find a decent size, deep bowl – make sure to gently drain it the evening after you’ve watered, to make sure you don’t get stagnant water in the bottom.

The best flowers to start with for kids, and ones that yield pretty flowers, are probably sunflowers (seeds available at every supermarket with your fortnightly big shop, on Amazon for less than £3 or Takealot where you can get an entire 2kg for R149) or Nasturtiums (Amazon for £5 or Takealot – R99 for a bulk pack, also including sunflowers!).

Both can be planted in a small-ish pot, either on a windowsill, on a balcony/terrace or in your garden. Make sure to keep the seeds far enough apart, treat them lovingly, and watch them grow! If you have access to a bird table, or space for birds to land, then, once your sunflower has lived its beautiful life you can pop the spent head on the table and watch all the birds flock to nibble on the seeds in the middle. Nasturtiums are, as I’m sure you know, the edible flowers you see on cakes and cheese boards. Plant them now (before the end of April) and they’ll flower all through summer. They’re a no-brainer for kids – they look pretty and they can eat them afterwards!

Other easily bought options are herbs (you can buy them already planted in small pots at most supermarkets), which you can pop on a kitchen window and eat straight from the pot. Rocket seeds are easy to get hold of, and can be grown in 3 weeks (plus, it’s a year-round herb). It can be eaten straight from the pot, and occasional ‘thinning’ (i.e. eating and tasting, so nobody can see) only helps it grow better. French beans and carrots are also easy to grow, and start in small pots – and Sweet Peas are great fun if you want another cute little flower – plant them now, and they’ll flower from May until October.

I understand gardening might not be for everyone, but it’s a fun way to keep kids entertained and concentrating. Another, really easy way to amuse them, especially the younger kids, is to feed the birds. You might think that sounds overly simple, but why not mix it up a bit? Fat balls and suet-based feed (available at bigger supermarkets, on Amazon and Takealot) last for ages. You can make a bird-feeder out of old wire coat hangers, or buy from the same places. My girls love watching the birds (and squirrels, ahem) eating the food they’ve put out for them, but they also really like dividing the food out, too.

It can be difficult trying to keep children occupied when they’re not allowed out of your property (even in the U.K., we can only go out once a day for exercise purposes) – and trying to do things other than screen time can be trying. Much as we’re resigned, for now, to letting the girls watch more telly than usual, we’ve still started saving ideas to do over time. Tomorrow, we’ll be making banana bread. Watch this space!

Oh, Corona…

I know, I know. You must be so very sick of hearing about the damn Corona Virus strain, Covid-19, by now.

Did you know that coronaviruses have been around for decades? Approximately 30% of common colds are caused by a strain of coronavirus. It is not new – SARS was also a separate strain. This strain is Covid-19, and, so far, it’s turning out to be a little bit more severe than people originally thought.

As I’m sure you’ve realised, we’re still stuck in the U.K. With CV19 causing countries, including South Africa, to close their borders, we’re fully expecting to still be here until at least May. Part of the worry about schooling has been taken away, as there are no longer schools in operation anywhere we want to be, but that now leaves us wondering how, exactly, to keep two kids entertained for the next few weeks without museums or soft play centres!

Thankfully, we’ve become almost dab hands at the homeschooling game. I’ll write a whole different post on our favourite activities for children. We’ve found quite a few things we enjoy doing. This post is just about one.

We have fallen in love with country walks. I know, that sounds weird – we’ve always been big walkers. Our dogs get walked daily, when we’re home, and I take them on at least one big trek per week.

Since we’ve been here, however, Stevie has decided her favourite place is out in nature. This is fantastic for all of us – well, apart from Elia, who is decidedly more of an indoor type of person. And we are incredibly lucky: short of being home, my in-laws’ house is definitely the best place to be quarantined. We are surrounded by vast acres of Yorkshire countryside and national park glory. I’m sure it’ll get stifling, eventually, but for now we’re fully enjoying our surroundings. Stay safe, everyone!

Stuck in a Cold, Intermittently Snowy Rut

I know, I know. I restarted my blog with a single post in December, then vanished off the face of the earth.

We travelled to England for our every-other-year (what do we call that? Is it biannual? Biennial? Answers on a postcard/in the comments pretty please) Christmas holiday, and I decided to leave my blog until we returned – hopefully, with a lovely, full list of things to blog about.

Well, things never seem to go how you want them to, do they. Oh, sure, I’ve got a fantastical long list of blog subjects (which I will post in the upcoming weeks, I assure you), but I haven’t been able to sit on my sofa and talk about them, just yet. Why, you may ask?

Well, because we’re still stuck here. Without going into too much detail, we’re playing a waiting game with South African home affairs, and we can’t go home just yet. We don’t even know when we will be able to – nobody can tell us.

My mother in law (retired primary school teacher) is homeschooling Stevie. We are trying to keep them outside, playing, for the rest of the day, but it’s very difficult. They constantly want to return home, as do we. We miss our dogs! Stevie asks at least once a day, when she can go to big school (she’s supposed to have started Crawford 3 weeks ago).

This is not a post to moan or complain – just an information post, for those who may have assumed I’d vanished. We’re still here; we’re still just about hanging on. Our sanity is just about still intact. But, my word, I have never known homesickness like this!

Hello, Old Friend

It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? If anyone is interested in a very long story, read on. If not, there’ll be a TL;DR at the bottom for you.

Shortly after my last blog post (we never did win that World Cup, after all) I decided I was going to focus wholly on my modelling, and take a step back from the blog. All went well for a while, until I had an 8 day stint in London which, well, didn’t go quite so well. It was decided, mutually, that, since I would need to spend infinitely more time overseas than I already was doing, I would take a giant leap back from the European modelling circuit.

Why didn’t I start my blog back up then, you may ask? Well, because I’ve been working on a couple of novels, and to be quite frank this year has been a big, hard adjustment for us all. I’ll dedicate a whole post to that in the new year, once I’ve got the festive season out of the way.

You may now be wondering, why have I not changed the name of my blog? Well, I still have representation here in Soutb Africa, and over in Germany. And I still do bits and pieces, here and there. Expect a video, starring both me and Pete, to come soon, and I’ll share mine and Stevie’s full shoot and cover story for Your Family in the next few days.

TL;DR I’ve taken a step back from modelling and will be restarting my blog ASAP

Welcome back to the wonderful, chaotic world of Mumming and Modelling. Hope you enjoy it as much as last time!

PS – I chopped off my hair, by the way!

Back to Work!

I never intended on going straight back to work after I had Elia. To be honest, I was still reeling from the 26+kg I put on with Stevie, resulting in a further 9 months of maternity leave after she was born, that I was assuming, due to being healthier this time, I could go back to work when Elia is 6 months or so.

But here’s the thing – I’ve lost my weight already. I’m back in my 26in jeans, and, much as I’m not in my favourite, model ‘shape,’ I’m not looking too bad. And with that, comes work.

So, this weekend, leaving behind a hard-worked for 3 litres (yes, really) of breastmilk in the freezer, I boarded a flight to Cape Town, to work with the lovely James Harvest crew. 3 days of work, 3 nights from my babies. Never had I dreamt I’d be doing this again with a 3-and-a-half-month-old baby.

And it was fine. My mum sent me a message on the Sunday, after spending part of the weekend with Pete and the girls, to tell me how proud she is of him for being such a good parent (well, duh, Mama) and how proud she is of me for going away. That was lovely, and so reassuring. Of course, I really missed the girls and Pete. Mostly in the nights, when I’d wake up to express milk, and have to go back to sleep in a cold, empty bed. And, much as I love FaceTime, when Stevie fell and hurt herself mid-conversation, it pained my heart to know I couldn’t be there to comfort her.

But we all came through it. I was very, very spoiled with my first trip back. Not a high shot count, amazing locations and food, well-organised and nice people: I felt like I was working 10 years ago! Such a lovely shoot to slowly get back into the swing of things.

I can honestly say, I’m still pushing for July to be when I make my first, official foray back into work. But if jobs like this come up in between now and then, I definitely won’t be turning them down. It’s a nice way to dip my feet back in the working waters. Pus, I got to eat a hot breakfast with both hands, which is always a bonus!

PS – the nicest part of the whole thing, of course, was coming home. Those two little faces lit up when they realised Mummy was back, and Stevie’s been telling every person she sees today. It’s worth going away just for that!

A Perfect Tuesday Morning

We’ve had a bit of a manic week and weekend. Most of it good – we had plenty of nice parties and events to go to at the weekend, plus my sister (Auntie Georgia, cheetah sister) and her man were in town, so we had lots of family time. But Cleo, our big dog, got a haematoma in her ear which has now become infected, and Stevie and Elia both decided to shout at me on Saturday – all morning – so it’s been just a bit much.

So, this morning, I woke up with the sudden realization that we have to hurry up with Elia’s passport paperwork (thank god we called to sort that out yesterday) – and this made me realise just how close I am to going back to work. Back to travelling and being away from my family.

I decided I’d get up and do the morning again this morning, to have some quality time with the two of them – and this happened…

What a way to start a Tuesday morning! We read books and watched Paw Patrol and snuggled until school time. It really cheered me up, so I thought I’d share it. Happy Tuesday, everyone!

On Tandem Nursing and Adjusting to a Little Sister…

Elia is 3 weeks old today. 3 whole weeks! Time has flown by so quickly. I knew it would – it seems like yesterday Stevie was this small. And I’m literally pinching myself every day, trying to remember every single moment, because I know that, in the blink of an eye, it’ll be June and I’ll be going back to work, missing my now-chaotic little household.

But I will be completely honest – adjusting to having two children, and also tandem feeding and letting Stevie adjust, hasn’t been the easiest – and I didn’t expect it to be.

Right now, Stevie is about 90% in love with her little sister (maybe more like 95%, actually – her love grows day g day and it’s wonderful!) but 5-10% jealous and trying to get used to not being the centre of our attention all the time. Thank god for tandem nursing!

Baby bums!

Tandem nursing has been our saving grace, but also my biggest adjustment. Stevie loves sharing her booby with her baby sister, but I’ve been trying to limit Stevie’s intake still. Which may turn out to have been a silly idea – from tomorrow, I’m going to let my girls have a lot more control over their routines. The hardest thing for me has been adjusting to having two creatures demanding not just my time, but my body. But then I sit and think how small they both still are (even though Stevie now feels giant) and I just melt. I love feeding both my girls, so I’m going to do it as they want it. Besides, Elia’s already put on 700g (900g if you count from her lowest weight) so I’m obviously doing something right!

Sorry for my slightly ranting, verbal vomit post, but I like to keep people informed. I know tandem feeding is a controversial subject, but I see nothing controversial about it for my family.

Tandem Feeding Info