Turning a Dream into a Reality

I've spent a lot of time this morning sat on the sofa cuddling Ellie, thinking about what my dream future would look like. I can see us living on a smallholding (chickens, goats, ducks, maybe some sheep) in rural Dorset with Ellie and her younger brother (or sister!) running around outside whilst hubby is out at work and I sit staring out of my home office, planning for my lecture the next day.

I have been thinking about this dream a lot, particularly becoming a lecturer. My ideal career will be still running my company with licensees working with me, and for the rest of my time to be spent as a University Lecturer preferably at a Southwest University.

So the first step is for me to complete my PhD (aiming for 2018); but along the way I want to gain experience of lecturing. My supervisor has suggested I do a guest lecture on the sociology course next year which would be great.I am also looking at teaching assistant roles at Uni.

Does anyone have any other tips for gaining experience to become a lecturer? I know that jobs after a PhD are limited, how can you make yourself stand out? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Review: Elemis Fragipani Range

On Tuesday I left my baby girl with hubby for the first time and headed to my hairdressers and beauty salon for an Elemis shopping event. I already knew that I liked Elemis (I have used their facial products in the past), so a I knew that I would probably treat myself to a little something! After stuffing my face with canapés and treating myself to a little fizz, I went around the salon trying different tester pots, feeling like a little girl! By the end of the evening my hands were feeling very soft and smelt of various lovely Elemis scents. One scent that stood out in particular was the fragipani range. I think I'm in love! So I bought the gift set (shower creme, body lotion and oil).

I had a semi-relaxing bath last night (baby decided she wanted to feed 10mins into my bath!) and tried out my new products. The smell really is divine and made my bathroom smell gorgeous! My favourite product is the oil, my beautician told me I could use it in my hair, so I put a very small amount in my hair combed it through, left it for a minute (they suggest 15) and rinsed off. All I can say is AMAZING!! This made my hair feel gorgeous, and worked well with my Paul Mitchell curl creme. I love the fact I can still smell fragipani this morning! I also put the oil on my legs whilst they were still damp, and this morning they were lovely and smooth. This is great as I always struggle with really dry skin this time of year.

This morning I needed my fragipani fix so I put the body lotion on my arms and neck so the smell can stay with me all day, like the oil, it has left my skin feeling very smooth. My parents were wondering what to get me for Christmas, now I know, anything from the Elemis fragipani range! I'd love to try the salt glow scrub, has anyone else used this?

Back to Work

Afternoon! I've just been sorting out dates for me to perform at a local hospital starting next January. Part of me is delighted as the extra money will come in very handy, and it will be great to go back to work, doing what I love. The other part of me is already feeling guilty for leaving Ellie. This is when I need a good shake, the work is only for an hour at a time and during that hour Ellie will be sat in a coffee shop just around the corner with my mum. So why do I already feel like a terrible parent?! I thought whilst I was already feeling guilty I might as well call the child minder (she is v popular so we go on her waiting list whilst I was pregnant). Hopefully she will have Ellie for a half day (or two days of 2 hours) per week to allow me time to completely focus on my PhD or Musica. We are going to see her next week to meet her properly and see her house. All feeling a bit odd at the moment. It is probably because in my mind Ellie will always be the small dependent baby she is at the moment.  But I have to remind myself that by the time she goes to the child minder next year she will be much bigger and probably very happy to play at someone else's house! What was your first day back at work like? Did you ease your way in gently or did you go straight back to working full time?

Afternoon Walk

We've just returned from a lovely walk by the river stour (my favourite location). We took Ellie in the ergo baby sling which is a fab sling for countryside walks, I'll get round to writing a review soon. Here's a pic of hubby and Ellie walking through a stream (hubby needed to clean his boots!) Have a good weekend

Musica Minis

Whilst I was pregnant I started exploring how music can help with child development, there is a wealth of research in this area, fascinating.

As most of you know, I own a company (www.musica-music.co.uk) running music workshops in care settings. Well, I have started looking into developing a series of workshops for babies and toddlers - Musica Minis. The great thing is that I can trial it on Eleanor and at the baby and toddler groups I'm already going to.

Really excited about this new venture! Will keep you posted on developments....

Archive: the new normal

For the first time in 4 weeks I am starting to feel a bit more like my self, Eleanor had a good solid 5 hours sleep last night :) We got up at 6am with my husband (as we do every day) and after a cuddle and feed Eleanor went back to sleep in her carry cot downstairs. Seeing as I am feeling very refreshed this morning I decided to do a little bit of work whilst she is asleep; it felt so good to be thinking about my research again.

So far I am taking small baby steps, looking back over my tutor's comments on my think piece and literature reviews, jogging my memory of my thoughts when I last worked on my research. Every now and then I have to stop to check on Eleanor as she has a tendency to snort and grunt in her sleep! Next step is to start reading journal articles, and hopefully my 'baby brain' won't get in the way (although I'm still not convinced there is such a thing!).

The great thing about working on my literature review at this time is that it is easy to work in chunks, reading an article at a time, making notes as I go along so that I can leave it (when Eleanor demands milk!) and go back to it at a later time. I am yet to master breastfeeding and holding my ipad so that I can read!

The new normal seems to be working out pretty well for us; although running my own company and conducting research in an area which I am passionate about is pretty great,  I must say that being a mum really is the best job in the world!

Pain free birth, really!

People have been asking me to share my birth story, so I have finally got around to writing it!

When I tell my friends that I had a pain free birth they stare at me quizzically, call me deluded, or tell me I must have forgotten the pain. To be honest I would have said the same a year ago.

However, even my husband vouches that our first child Eleanor, was born into the world easily and calmly on 28th Septmber. I believe that this is all due to the fact that I stayed active during my pregnancy. From week 8 I began attending local pregnancy yoga classes, aquanatal sessions, and right until the end of my pregnancy I was out waking the dogs, although admittedly I was a lot slower in the last month!

From the 25th week of my pregnancy I started attending a Lazy Daisy group in Wimborne Minster, and the techniques I learned were the reason that I had such a smooth labour.

On Sunday 28th September my husband and I were shopping in the co-op when my waters broke! We got home and I began moving on my birthing ball, I could hear my class leader saying 'rotate to dilate!' Unfortunately my TENs machine had stopped working (typical!) so I just had 2 paracetamol.

On the way to the hospital (45minute drive) I listened to a natal hypnotherapy CD which I had listened to throughout my pregnancy. This helped me to mentally prepare for the birth; I felt positive and completely in control of the situation.

Throughout the car journey I had strong cramps in my thighs, I made myself ignore these as I thought my contractions would be so much worse. It wasn't until I got to hospital that I realised these were part of my contractions. Apparently the pain can be transferred to other parts of the body, who knew!

By the time I got to hospital I was 5cm dilated and still feeling fine. I kept active, moving on the birthing ball, on all fours, walking around. The main thing that got me through was the 4 and 8 breathing (breathe in for 4 seconds, out for 8), this worked really well with gas and air.

I quickly got to 10cm dilated and was ready to push. My plan of having a water birth went out of the window as the midwife was concerned I wouldn't make it to the water birthing room! Unfortunately after this things actually slowed down and I had a slow second stage as I was getting tired. Despite my husband's best efforts of feeding me haribo and apricots, I need a bit more assistance.

The Dr was called, and they administered a drip to strengthen my contractions, and eventually decided to use a ventouse. During the pushing stage I stopped having gas and air as I was so focussed, I was determined to meet our baby girl.

At 19.11 (8.5 hours after my waters broke) Eleanor Catherine Mead was born, weighing a healthy 8lb 2. Even though she was delivered by ventouse and I had an episiotomy I really didn't feel pain, just pressure.

I had the most amazing birth experience, and I would love for other women to know that it is possible to have a pain free birth, yes really! But even for women that don't have the positive experience I did, the result is the same, we all have our beautiful babies at the end of it, this thought keeps you going.

I would like to thank the staff at Yeovil District Hospital for looking after me and helping me through my journey, they really were amazing and I can't wait to go through it all again (let's give it at least a couple of years though!)<br /><br /><a href="https://academicmummy.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/img_0063-0.jpg"><img src="https://academicmummy.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/img_0063-0.jpg" alt="IMG_0063-0.JPG" class="alignnone size-full" /></a>