Coffee mornings

Meeting up with other mum's at 'coffee mornings' is something that I really enjoy, and hopefully when Chicken is older she will too.  Sharing successes and challenges, getting and giving advice and generally having people around you who are in the same boat makes things a lot easier.  Most weeks I go to a few groups and I'm now starting to make new friends, very exciting!

On Tuesdays I meet up with the seven other girls that I went on my ante-natal course with.  The idea of the course was to prepare us for labour and childbirth so we could make informed decisions and make friends with other people in the same situation as us.  The first baby arrived in early December and the last in early February, with five boys and three girls.  We take turns hosting at our houses and chat and compare notes.  My Chicken for example is one of the worst sleepers, but has no trouble feeding.  The other girls offer some suggestions and generally lend a supportive ear, basically they make you feel like you're not alone, which is really important at 4am when you've been woken for the fourth time that night!  Its also a chance for me to indulge in my baking hobby, which the girls are always grateful for!

On Friday's I have my school coffee group of two.  Alice and I work together and had babies 9 days apart.

This is Robbie, Alice's boy who is staring adoringly at my little madam, while she screams at the top of her lungs!  We usually meet up at a cafe, and have lunch and then go for a walk around a park.  Alice is one of my closest friends in the UK, and its been great to have someone else to go through all of this with.

My final group is a breastfeeding group run by my local children's centre.  I first went to to get some support and the lady who runs the group suggested I kept coming and so I have.  I didn't know anyone there and Eilidh was quite a bit younger than the other babies, but I kept going and now I've started to make friends with some of the other mums.  Today I ran into two of them in town and we had coffee and have made plans to go to a singalong session at the library on Thursday.  I am very excited about this!  These groups don't suit everyone, but I'm enjoying the support and friendship of the other women, and its nice to get out of the house especially when it needs a clean, hehe.

PS Chicken had her month immunisations today and was a real trouper!