Here are 6 things I’m currently loving on etsy:
1. Cute animal alphabet cards… 2. a bouquet of pom pom flowers… 3. organic cotton raindrop baby blanket… 4. Mog the cat lambswool soft toy… 5. double sided bunny ears hairband… 6. hand-knitted detachable baby pierrot collar.
Last week, Anya and I had this conversation:
Anya: Mama, where did I come from?
Me: You came from my tummy.
Anya: I already know that! But where did I come from?
Me: I don’t know what you mean? You came from my tummy…
Anya: No mama, how did I get inside your tummy?!
I wasn’t ready for this conversation as I never dreamed that I would be having it with my 5 year old. Maybe I’m naive but I always thought these questions come up much later. I quickly changed the topic and distracted her but I know that this will probably come up again soon. And I’m really wondering what to say. Do I go down the creative route and make something up or do I keep changing the topic? I know I’m not going to tell her anything even close to the truth yet. I do think it’s good to be honest with kids but this is just too young for me but I still do want to give her some answer. So I’ve been trying to think of a few and the one I’m leaning towards is when you want a baby, you wish really, really hard for one and it just appears in your tummy!
Have you had this conversation with your kids? At what age? What did you say? Can you think of a better explanation? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.
Have a lovely weekend and I hope it doesn’t come with any awkward questions! x
{photo by ebabee: Anya aged 10 months}
As I’m Indian and my husband is British, Anya is a mixed kid. These days I’m seeing more and more mixed families which is a wonderful thing. Many of our friends are multicultural as are Anya’s. Especially in and around London, the multicultural family is very much the norm and I love this aspect of my adopted city. Recently a friend in a similar family asked me how I was exposing Anya to the Indian side of her culture and this got me thinking. Am I doing enough? As Anya is getting older, I am getting more and more conscious of the need to make sure she understands her Indian roots too. As her father is British and she is growing up in London she will naturally understand and experience the British culture but exposure to the Indian side is up to me.
Anya has grown up eating a lot of Indian food at home and has visited India several times. I’ve tried to teach her Hindi (the Indian language) but she resisted my attempts because she felt no one else speaks it so why should she. She would cover her ears and tell me not to speak in ‘that funny way’. Of course we all know that no kid likes to be different. Instead, I recently enrolled her in Hindi classes. This isn’t just to learn the language but also to give her an opportunity to mix with other Indian kids and let her see that there are other people in London who speak Hindi (which came as a bit of a shock to her at her first class!). I’ve also started making an effort to celebrate the biggest Indian festival of the year and I even went to her school to give a talk about it to her class.
I’m learning as I go along and trying to do things so that she has a balance of both cultures. My husband Richard is totally supportive of this and like me, completely believes that if you do happen to be a mixed family it’s so important to have a good understanding of both your cultures as that can really widen your horizons.
Since I’m still finding my way, I’m really curious to find out if you are a mixed family, how do you do it? Do you have any tips on integrating the second culture in to daily life? I’d love to hear your suggestions and ideas.
Have a wonderful weekend! x
{photo by ebabee – an old one from when Anya was just a baby}
For some reason Mothers Day in many countries is this Sunday (2nd Sunday in May) except in the UK where it’s always 3 Sundays before Easter Sunday. My mum is coming over from India tomorrow and in India too Mothers Day is this Sunday. So since she’s in town we’ll be celebrating Mothers Day again. It’s not often I get to spend Mothers Day with my mum as we live so far apart so this one will be special and will involve our favourite pastime – eating a big meal somewhere nice. Yay!
To celebrate UK Mothers Day I had done a fun mum and daughter shoot of Anya and me with talented photographer Abigail Fahey. Abigail talked me in to it as she rightly said that we end up taking loads of photo’s of our kids but not many with our kids. So I wanted to share another of the photo’s from the shoot and hope it reminds you to take loads of pictures with your kids every day, not just on Mothers Day.
Have a wonderful weekend and a very happy Mothers Day to all of you who are celebrating this Sunday!
{Photo by Abigail Fahey Photography for ebabee}
Next week we leave for India and Nepal so I’m busy thinking about everything I have to take with me especially since we have a wedding to attend. The one thing I know we can’t leave home without is that bunny or else there will be trouble! Despite having loads to do before we go, I am really excited as this trip is going to be a family reunion after a long time. As a family we are spread out across the globe so I’m really looking forward to us all being in the same place at the same time, bunny included! The India part of the trip is going to be all about eating, meeting friends and spending lots of evenings talking, laughing and shouting (Indians tend to get over-excited and loud!).
And to top it all off we are heading to Kathmandu, Nepal together to attend a close family wedding. I’m looking forward to the dressing up, the music, the fun and all the joy that a wedding has to offer. But I also can’t wait to explore Kathmandu as I’ve never been before. I love visiting a new part of the world and taking in all the sights, sounds and smells it has to offer. If any of you have been I’d love to hear about your experiences and places to see and especially where to eat. So please tell all…
Wishing you all a fun-filled Easter break and happy travels if you’re going away.
P.S. The angry face is because I taped the bunny to the wall and apparently he doesn’t like it.
{photo by ebabee}
Do you take loads of pictures of your kids? If you are anything like me, I often click away but when I recently looked back at my photos I realised there were hardly any of me with Anya. My biggest regret is that I don’t have many with Anya as a newborn. One of the reasons is that I am very camera shy but also I am the one taking the pictures. So I’ve ended up with loads of pictures of Anya which is great but I’d love to have more of her with me and more with all three of us as a family. Abigail Fahey, a photographer and mum of four offered to come over and photograph us for Mothers Day so I agreed.
We decided to keep things natural and didn’t dress up for the shoot. I’m not keen on those studio shoots where everyone is posed and every last detail planned. Instead it was about capturing us in our everyday lives in our home, doing what we normally do. So we cuddled, tickled, played on my bed and just enjoyed each other while Abigail shot us.
I love the way Abigail has captured us in our home, with us just being who we really are. We are a very cuddly, huggy, affectionate family and I think Abigail has got that so well. Through my blog I get to meet many talented and creative people like Abigail and I feel so lucky and grateful for this. Abigail has an amazing eye and a unique style – love those reflections in the shots below.
Whenever I visit my mum in India, I always enjoy looking through our old family albums. So despite my camera shyness, I’m so glad I did this because it’s not only a great Mothers Day memory but also something both Anya and I will look back on in years to come and I know we’ll be so happy to have some beautiful shots of us together. A big thanks to Abigail whose beautiful family photography you can see more of on her website.
Wishing you an amazing Mothers Day full of love and I hope you capture those memories this weekend. x
P.S. Abigail has also photographed herself with her four beautiful children and has set all you mothers out there a challenge for this Mothers Day. Find out more on her blog.
{all photographs by Abigail Fahey Photography for ebabee}
Today I’ve been interviewed by the lovely Ana of pink nounou. I talk to her about playing with Anya and all that this involves. In my interview I chat about how, more than anything else, Anya loves to play outdoors and just spend time outside. Now that Spring is finally here (yay!) I look forward to spending a lot more time outside as a family. Not just in our local parks but visiting some of London’s fabulous outdoor spaces for a picnic (Holland Park is my favourite) or outdoor markets or the zoo. Anywhere that offers some family fun and is outside. I leave you with a few pictures of some memorable moments from our Spring last year.
Have a wonderful weekend and happy Spring! x
{all photos by ebabee}
This week we have had loads of sunshine in London. This makes us happy, very happy. I love all the change of seasons but this is by far the best one for me. You start to see a lot more colour appear on the streets because people start swapping their Winter greys for Spring colours, the parks are full of kids playing again and all the bright and beautiful flowers are starting to bloom. It’s been a colourful week here and I’ve got colour on the mind so I wanted to wish you all a colourful weekend! Enjoy x
I’ve been keeping a little photo log of Anya ever since she was born. My idea is to photograph her in the same chair, wearing white, sitting next to her favourite stuffed toy over a period of many years. I started when she was 5 months old and took the latest picture last week.
When I look back at the original picture and compare it to the latest one, I can’t believe the huge change in 5 short years. I’ve often been told ‘kids grow very quickly so make sure you enjoy them at every stage’. I never really understood or appreciated this sentiment till Anya came along but now I totally get it. Time is moving fast and life is busy for most of us so it’s really easy to forget to enjoy every little moment of bonding and love that we share with our kids every single day. I love looking back at these photos once in a while because they are a constant reminder that every age, every stage is fleeting so it’s important to enjoy the moment you’re in because it won’t last long.
I’m so glad I’ve kept this photo record and I plan to continue till she’s 18! Have you done anything similar with your kids? I’d love to hear.
Have a fun weekend and enjoy those amazing everyday moments with your kids. x
Did you child proof your home? I didn’t and I learned my lesson the hard way. I foolishly believed that all would be fine and I didn’t need to be a paranoid parent. I think I just never thought it through. I’ve pretty much kept this to myself because I’ve been ashamed to admit how stupid I had been but when Safety 1st (a company that focuses on making the world a safer place for babies and kids) got in touch and asked me to share my story in order to spread the word about how important child safety is, I couldn’t say no.
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago when Anya was nearly 3 years old. I went out while my husband Richard stayed home with Anya. As I walked back home my phone rang. It was Richard and I was sure he was calling to ask me to pick up something on my way home. When I answered I immediately knew something was wrong, very wrong. He said something along the lines of ‘Anya’s cut her head, she’s bleeding heavily, we need to get to the hospital.” I ran home and found my baby covered in blood and sobbing uncontrollably. She had slit her forehead open on the corner of the coffee table and the wound looked awful.
Of course we rushed to the emergency room and after an initial check we were asked to wait. In the meantime Anya had perked up quite a bit and was jumping around the waiting room much to the horror of the other parents who were staring at this little child covered in blood but playing as if all was well with the world. But this reassured Richard and me. We could see that while the cut was bad, she was fine. Big, huge sigh of relief. A while later 3 nurses glued her forehead back together (apparently they don’t uses stitches on kids anymore) while blowing bubbles to keep Anya distracted. The doctor checked her over and said even though the wound looked really bad, it was superficial and all was well. Thank you NHS.
Lesson learned and how. According to the New York Times, turns out that coffee tables are one of the biggest hazards for kids inside the home. Those foam corner guards may not be pretty but if you have a wooden coffee table, you need them. If you have a glass coffee table, get rid. And if like me, you’re naive enough to believe that you don’t need at least some amount of child proofing within the home, think again. I wish I had. Anya still has a scar and each time I look at it I feel terrible for allowing something so awful to happen to her especially when it could easily have been avoided.
This post is brought to you in partnership with Safety 1st. All content, words and images are my own. Thank you for supporting my work with carefully selected partners that allow me to bring you new content like this.
{top photo by ebabee, bottom photo by Juliana of Captured by Juliana for ebabee}
All rights reserved © ebabee likes
Theme by Blogmilk Coded by Brandi Bernoskie