A year later and I really cannot shift the baby weight | Cheryl Gibbs

Like most women, I put on the pounds pregnant with Harley and struggled to lose it after. But 14 months on and I’m still heavier than I should be. I definitely realise that if I don’t lose some pounds now, I’ll stay this way forever so this week I’ve been trying the keto diet.

It basically means living on hardly any carbs and next to no sugar, but eating high amounts of fat and protein. I want to pull my hair out already and it’s only been a few days.

I think I’ll shift a few pounds.

It would be hard not to on this diet, but it’s no way to live.

Trying to create natural curly hair is not worth the hassle

My sister Michelle manages to make her hair look naturally curly by sleeping with a damp plait in her hair overnight.

I tried this week to do what she does and I went to bed with a plait – but not one plait, six. I have really thick hair so I didn’t think one would cut it so I went to bed looking rather bizarre and slept uncomfortably all night. When I woke in the morning, I realised why Michelle only uses one plait – running a brush through my mane, the curls went all frizzy.

Matt burst out laughing declaring and Harley looked at me like she didn’t recognise me.

I won’t be attempting it again – it definitely wasn’t worth the hassle. Or the lack of sleep.

I miss Harley so much when she goes to nursery

What a difference a day makes – literally a day. One minute we were basking in the glorious bank holiday sun and the next we’re wrapped up iwatching the snow.

Only in England…

I had a wonderful bank holiday.

I know everyone says working from home because of the pandemic has helped bring them a better work/life balance because, of course, most don’t have the dreaded daily commute that takes up so much of your day.

But for me, having always worked from home, I haven’t noticed much of a difference. When I am ‘forced’ to take time off due to leave or bank holidays, what I love the most is being able to switch of mentally and it just felt wonderful to do that over the long four day weekend.

I just love spending time with Harley. It’s hard work looking after a baby – don’t get me wrong – much harder than working in my opinion. But I miss her all the time when she’s away and I watch the clock for her return – I’ve become that mum and I don’t mind admitting it either.

She’s 14 months old now and has the cheekiest little character. She can say all the variations of ‘dad’, has just started saying ‘mum’, says ‘ello’ as she puts my phone to her ear and this week ‘nan’ has been a new word.

She’s also become a bit more needy (god help Matt, he has enough on his plate with me being needy) and her latest thing is to grab my hand and pull me to where she wants me to be. This usually involves aimlessly wondering around the bungalow for no apparent reason at all, but now she’s learnt to pull my hand to what she wants – opening a drawer, pulling my hand towards her bottle station because she wants a bottle, or literally swiping my fingers over my phone to unlock it – I mean, the kids got game.

Everyone asks me what baby stage is the hardest or best and there isn’t one. There’s just variations of good and hard.

The Easter break was just the perfect opportunity for us to reconnect again without any outside interruptions or work phone calls and emails. I loved it – only a matter of weeks before we can do it again. Yay!