The Z word

Author: thezword

  • The Cupcake King. Baking with Rex

    I absolutely love that my boy loves making cakes as much as I do! He really likes getting hands on with weighing and mixing aswell as sneakily eating the sprinkles when he thinks mummy ain’t looking! So I promised him we’d make some cakes on my day off so that’s exactly what we did! Below is how it went plus the recipe if you’d like to try making some yourself!

    Cupcakes

    250g caster sugar

    250g Margerine

    250g self raising flour

    4 eggs

    LOTS OF SPRINKLES !!

    Method

    Weigh out all Ingredients and set your oven to 160oc

    Beat the marge and sugar together until fluffy

    Slowly add the eggs and beat hard until creamy

    Tip in all the flour and mix slowly until combined.

    Add some sprinkles and chocolate chips then spoon into cupcake cases and bake on 160oc for approx 20 min.

    So off we went! Apron on and Chef Rex was ready and raring to go. Weighing the ingredients like a pro he was having a ball! all we need for next time is a big tall white hat.

    He was being very helpful and very tidy which made mummy happy!

    In go the sprinkles!
    All ready to go in the oven!
    Decorated with buttercream m&ms and magic stars. Yummy!

    Z

    Xxx

  • Ultrasound Direct. Our early scan

    If you’re anything like me and by that I mean the most inpatient person in the world then you’d know I’ve been chomping at the bit to find out the gender of our baby as early as possible. So it’s a bloody good job we knew exactly where to go as I’ve been in this predicament before! That’s right we also had a private scan to find out that Rex was a boy because I was sooooo desperate to know.

    Now the clinic we used last time was absolutely cracking. It’s called ultrasound direct and it’s In Oxford buisness park, they specialise in diffrent things. One of those being gender scans apparently they’ve only got one wrong in the whole time theve been open! Which puts my mind as ease because the NHS hospital scan isn’t actually designed to find out the gender they just so happen to beable to tell you it. (If they can) anyway back to ultrasound direct, they do a scan for pretty much anything you just have to pick which one you’d like. We had 2 options… gender reveal scan where they don’t tell you the gender and instead it gets put into a secret envelope and you also get a big confetti cannon filled with either blue or pink confetti. Or you can go for just the gender scan where they basically just tell you what your having. Which is the one we went for.

    So off we popped on Saturday morning to go find out wheather it’s 💕 or 💙 now the building has moved from when we last went and it’s not signposted very well so it took abit of finding but we got there eventually with about 2 minutes to spare. But as we walked through the door I could see the receptionists face sink as she said to me “Oh didn’t you know we don’t allow children in” OH FUCK we’d only taken Rex with us hadn’t we!! And I really don’t want to go in on my own. But very kindly they agreed to sneak Rex in. Now I’m not sure how anyone sneaks Rex into anything as he ain’t exactly the quietest of chaps but we managed it!

    We had a lovely lady called Alison and she was magnificent. Before revealing the gender she did a number of diffrent checks and showed us the heart beat. Then…. She pulled out this laminated sheet and told us what the diffrent “bits” of the baby look like and could we guess before she tells us. Oh crickey I ain’t qualified for this sort of thing! So basically we’re either looking for a little willy OR a little line which is the sign it’s a girl. After abit of jiggling about it was kinda hard to tell but then I saw the line!! To scared to say girl incase I was wrong and looked like a ungrateful idiot for not saying boy I said ummm a girl? I think… I’m not sure.

    CONGRATULATIONS…. It’s a girl she said! All I heard was a big cheer from hubby as he was desperate for a girl! I don’t really know what was going through my head but I was excited, scared and humbled all in one! One of each we’re going to have one of each how lucky are we! Then it suddenly dawns on me. Oh shit I don’t know what I’m doing with a girl! My life had been consumed by boy stuff for nearly 4 years I have absolutely no idea how to shop for a girl or anything!! Anyway we finshed up and had about 6-7 scan photos given to us then we left. The scan cost us £60 which isn’t to bad in my opinion.

    And so there you have it! We are having a girl! How bloody exciting. June can’t come quick enough 💕 until next time.

    Z

    Xxx

  • Heartbeat ❤️

    I figured we needed a little update. I am now 15 weeks pregnant with my little bean. (Gender still to be determined) so what’s been happening?

    Well I’m finally (just about) over this horrible cough flu thing I’ve had, my stomach is VERY twingey and stretchy even though I still don’t think I’m showing yet. That’s the problem with being fat and pregnant nobody can really tell if you are still fat or actually pregnant.

    Anyhow… off I popped for my 15 week check up with my lovely midwife Rebecca. Same midwife I had last time by the way which I am SO RELIEVED about as she’s so lovely and caring. So we did the usual pee test. Oh how I’ve not missed pissing in the worlds smallest test tube! We did a few bits like checking for early pre eclampsia and some blood tests ect. Then it was time to Listen to baby’s heartbeat for the first time!! Ekkkkk

    So off I lay on that really awkwardly Shaped table top pulled up (Which I felt so self conscious about as I’m not exactly a size 4) now I forgot to mention I had Rex with me in this appointment who may I add sat watching YouTube on my phone behaving impeccably! Or untill he saw the Doppler Machien he started crying and getting really upset I’m not quite sure what he thought it was but he wasn’t happy! Anyway on goes the Doppler Machien thingey few minuets of trying and nothing then all of a sudden BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM the heartbeat!! And oh my god rex belly laughed like I’ve never heard him laugh before in my life!! It was hillarious so much so that me and the midwife were in hysterics aswell which really made the experience rather fun, so Thankyou to rex for that!!

    Now for the not so nice bit. This conversation actually put the fear of god into me. Basically when giving birth to Rex I had to be “cut” yes and by cut I mean I had my fanny sliced open like a tin of corned beef, and as a consequence of that I ended up losing 2 litres of blood which to this day still makes me shiver!! Anyhow long story short I’m classed as high risk so when I go into labour I absolutely have to be at the hospital and I have to have a blood transfusion and emergency doctor on stand by plus a couple of other bits that I really didn’t understand so that kinda put a dampener on the whole thing but I guess it’s better to be prepared!!

    Till next time

    Z

    Xxx

  • Testing testing 123

    Well here’s a post I didn’t think I’d be writing for some time. IM PREGNANT…. Baby number 2 is well and truly baking away in my tummy. And if you’d read my last blog post you’d see how utterly fed up and done in I was of trying so hard and not getting pregnant. But it worked and FINALLY it’s my turn again.

    But it wasn’t all plain sailing. 12 months in and the doctors suggested I have some blood tests to check my hormone levels. (Which I ever so coinsidiencly had when I was trying with Rex) anyhow off I popped to get my bloods done and I said to the nurse imagine if the same thing happend like last time and I got pregnant just after having my blood test we laughed it off at how impossible it would be to happen again anyway a couple of days later I had a call from the doctor to say my hormone levels are really low and to come in again in 2 weeks for more tests. Then BAM a week later I’ve got a positive test! Who the hell could have predicted that ?? And…. If that’s not spooky enough the day I found out I was pregnant is the same EXACT day I found out I was pregnant with Rex 4 years ago to the day!

    So let me go back 1 week and fill you in on what actually happend. I had my bloods taken a week and a half before my period was due, but I did think to my self that my boobs were sore and that never really happens unless I’m due on so thought nothing more of it. Then I started to feel abit sick and then my boobs really fucking hurt and I thought to myself can it be true? So In true Zoe fashion I spent a week on Tik Tok watching video after video about early testing ect ect and by the end of it I thought fuck it what do I have to lose? Handily I had some cheap tests I had bought on eBay in my drawer plus a couple of decent ones so I thought rather than waste the good ones I’d start off with the cheapies and see what happens. First day I got a solid negative but I knew something still wasn’t right so I tested again the next day, same again. Now the following day which I think was the Wednesday by this point I had a really faint positive. Shit the bed could this actually be true? Questioning how this can happen after what my blood tests had said I questioned myself all day. But I decided to take a proper test the following day and I got a BIG FAT POSITIVE oh my goodness I was not expecting this. How on earth has the same thing happend twice! And I was terrified of telling anybody just incase the million tests I’d taken were all wrong.

    But anyway here we are I’m walking around with a little bean growing away in me and nobody knows! Except our parents who we told by a t shirt sported by the one and only Rex pictured below who by the way told us he doesn’t want to be a big brother and he doesn’t want a brother or sister so that’s nice!

    So 3 turns into 4 June 2023 and I’m about to bore you all with my blogs about pregnancy for the next 9 months 😊

    Much love

    Z

    Xxx

  • Sick note

    Fuck my actual life… sick note alert!! I have felt sick as a dog since even before I found out I was with child. And the worst part is I can’t tell anyone how rough I feel 😩 honest to god I just wish I was actually being sick so atleast I could feel better after. But instead I just “feel” sick call fucking day and night!

    And everything I do makes me feel sick, listening to music, cooking, watching the tely just makes me want to vom my guts up and I don’t know how much longer I can take it for!!

    Just to make matters even worse I feel like I’ve been punched in the tits. Jesus wept they hurt!

    This ain’t what I signed up for! I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve even had to ditch watching master chef because the sight of food is unbearable. So you can imagine what going to work is like 😂😂😂 plus I had to take a couple of mornings off work because of it and I NEVER take time off sick. Or atleast I didn’t till all this drama happend I feel like I’ve been off for weeks trying to recover from one thing or another.

    Luckely for me the sickness died down around 11-12 weeks THANK GOD that shit was really starting to get me down. BUT I had a lovely little bout of the flu some weeks later which has absolutely floored me! and I’ve had my flu jab! Imagine what it would have been like if I hadn’t. Anyway I just about started to feel normal again when I got hit by the worst chest infection known to man! I’m so glad I lived to tell this tale because it was utterly horrendous. I got home from work one Saturday night of constant coughing sore throat ect ect and I just couldn’t take anymore, I was in tears and gasping for breath after coughing oh god I was in a right old state so I thought I can’t wait till Monday I will ring 111….. 2 hours on hold I finally get through to be told a doctor will call me in 6 hours . 24 hours later and I finally got the call and got on some antibiotics which have really helped me feel better they just haven’t shifted this bastard cough. And where I’ve been coughing so much it actually hurts my tummy where everything is stretching now it’s really made me quite sore which is horrible.

    They say it comes in 3s so I’m sure something else will come along once I’m over the chest infection. Just another day being pregnant.

    Z

    Xxx

  • Negative

    I sit here today writing this after getting yet another negative pregnancy test. Asking myself WHY? Almost another year in trying for baby number 2 and still nothing. I thought the first time around was just bad luck but here I am going through it all again.

    What I don’t understand is why. Why does it take me SO long to get preggers?? Why do I have such bad luck?? Upon the first few months I was so casual about it so I didn’t get myself in the state I did the first time round. But a year later and I’m crying my eyes out because every Tom dick and Harry around me is getting pregnant and having babies and I just don’t understand why I can’t get pregnant AGAIN 😩

    It’s so tough. And it’s so hard because you just don’t talk about it with people. Me especially because I think it’s “bad luck” but clearly it’s not. It’s such a lonely place to be. Seeing everyone else walking around with a bun in the oven after only trying for 5 minutes. It hurts and I’m a very bitter person right now.

    When’s my turn?

    I think I’m slowly going bananas, I spend hours online watching videos of other women taking pregnancy tests scrolling through all these videos over and over and over until I just can’t take anymore. In my weird little head I watch these vidoes so much I think well they are pregnant so that must mean I am to! Every night I’m up till god knows what time in the morning googling pregnancy, googling symptoms and god knows what else. I just can’t stop it’s like a sickness.

    Every pregnancy announcement is like a kick in the balls I smile and try to be happy but fuck me am I gutted. Gutted that I don’t know what the future is going to hold, will I beable to have another baby? Who knows. I guess all I can do is keep trying and hope that one day I get my second positive. Last week I had some blood tests that confirmed my hormone levels are quite low which was a kick in gut, I’m booked in for more tests next week so until then I just need all the luck in the world.

    Z

    Xxx

  • Going potty, Part 1

    The dreaded time has come. Yes that’s right potty training! And I’m already going potty! To be honest I really should have started a while ago now. Rex is just over 3 so I do feel abit lazy on my part. Anyhow better late that never right? Stocked up on tiny little pants. Plenty of carpet cleaner and a peppa pig toilet seat I’m ready for battle

    So I’ve been putting him in pants on and off for a few hours here and there with luckely no accidents. Constantly asking him do you need a wee wee Rex? And he just looks at me like what the fuck are you on about mum? He’s totally no where near ready for this!!

    So today I just thought sod it im going to do this he goes back to pre school in 2 weeks and I’d really like him to be potty trained by then. So on go his little pants and he’s running round happy as Larry. I keep sitting him on the toilet every now and then but nothing. So off we pop carrying on with our day. I’m busy upstairs putting the washing away and I can just hear my husband shout OH NO REX! And I just knew what had happened.

    That’s right. SHIT EVERYWHERE. And not just any old shit. Possibly the runniest shit I’ve ever seen in my life and it’s covering my sofa, the carpet and THE LEGO. Oh Jesus wept I never thought I’d see the day where I had to wash human shit off some Lego. But here we are. Anyhow hubby rushes him up to the bath while I deal with the Poopy stained massacre that is my living room. Have you ever tried scrubbing shit off of Lego? Bugger me I think I’d be better off throwing in the bin! My poor poopy carpet is taking a right bettering from this very tiny but very dirty litte child.

    I guess tomorro is another day right? Stay tuned for part 2 once we are actually using the toilet.

    Z

    Xxx

  • Ditching the Dummy

    For anybody who knows Rex they know he has to have his dummy surgically removed to be without it. Coming up to 3 years old we had to make the hard decision to ditch the dummy.

    During pregnancy we decided he was not going to have a dummy because quite frankly I didn’t really like them. Then litlerry days after he was born I was like “GET ME A DUMMY” honestly I don’t know how parents cope with a crying baby when they don’t use a dummy. So Rex pretty much had his from birth. Then around the 6 month mark he sort of wasn’t really bothered with them which I was so happy about which is the time I really should have just thrown them all in the bin because Then for some unknown reason he started Using them again and slowly it got worse and worse and he’d have a dummy in mouth pretty much all day. Which is fine but when your coming up to 3 years old it’s really not a good look. So I was absoultly dreading trying to get him off it.

    So I kept telling myself that we would ditch the dummy on my days off after hearing horror stories of children having almighty meltdowns I was not prepared to handle this situation (which is why I kept putting it off for so long)

    Then one day we went out on a day trip and forgot to take one. (Whoops) and by the time we’d gotten home he was already asleep and put straight to bed. I actually couldn’t believe this is the longest time he’d ever gone without a dummy shoved in his gob.

    The following day he woke and we had breakfast and played and I decided to tidy out his toy box. Rex found a dummy and came running over to me to put it in my hand. To say I was in a state of shock is a understatement. Is this the end of dummy? And from that day forward he has not had a dummy. HORRAY!! Im so so proud of him. We’ve had one little slip up where he managed to find one a few weeks later and got abit upset but other then that it’s all good. HES DITCHED THE DUMMY!!

    Z

    Xxx

  • Grief Raw and Real

    9 months ago I endured the worst experience of my life when I lost my little brother Mike very suddenly and unexpectedly. Mike was 29 years old and had years ahead of him. And to this day I still cannot believe it actually happend.

    I’ve been trying to write about this for a while now but whenever I try I just feel sick to my stomach because if I write it down then it makes it “Real” even though it is actually real. So here goes…

    I don’t even know where to start if I’m honest. So I guess I should start from the beginning. On the 23rd July 2021 my whole world collapsed when I got that call that nobody wants to get. To get there quick. I’m not going into detail about what happend but we all know the outcome. My brother my only brother and only sibling had gone. How can this be real? I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t think and I couldn’t believe what had just happend. He was only walking home from work and didn’t make it home. My first thought was how am I going to cope. My second thought was I need to hurt myself, I remember wondering wether my mum had any kitchen knives in the drawer because I had to do something anything to make this not be real. My third thought was I really need a poo and is this what people do when somebody has died? To this day I have no idea why I had that thought but I did end up going for that poo.

    Days went by where we just sat in silence, barely speaking a word to one another, not eating not doing anything . Numb and nauseous. I had the shits terrible for days aswel as vomiting. It must have been the shock . All I knew was nothing mattered anymore, the doctor gave me diazepam and sleeping pills to ease my pain. Didn’t work. Weeks went by being surrounded by my family we talked and we cried. We hugged and we laughed. How else do you cope with everything?

    The grief sits inside you like a monster under the bed that won’t go away. The daily struggle of knowing I’ve got the rest of my life without my brother is just unimaginable. Because this isn’t how it’s supposted to work out. We’re supposted to be growing old together and all of a sudden that reality is ripped from beneath me.

    Soon enough the time came for me to go back to work. Panic attacks and extreme anixety was just a normal part of my day trying to get through having to go back. It’s the little things isn’t it. Every time I write a label with the date on all I can think is that my brother is not seeing this date. And that was a long few months before that thought left my head. I just kept wondering why is the world was still going on without him? Why am I laughing with people, I shouldn’t be feeling happy I shouldn’t be laughing what on earth would Mike think?

    I had my doctor calling me regularly to check in on me because grief mixed up with mental Health issues is not a great combination. I developed PTSD. Everytime I hear a siren or see an ambulance it takes me back to that night. If I see a helicopter it breaks me and i cannot cope with the thought that the air ambulance flew off that night without him. Every night when I’m in bed the second I close my eyes I’m right back to the night he died. I can see and hear everything as clear as the day it happend. My mums screams haunt me. The doctors words are etched in my brain and I’m absolutely devastated still that they couldn’t do more. It’s only just recently that I’ve managed to go to bed and not have the flashbacks.

    Grief is a fucker. fast forward a few months and things got a little better, we started raising money for the air ambulance that tried to help Mike. It keeps us all busy. But the depression started to creep in. I couldn’t be left alone on my days off, some weeks were so extreme I was frightned to be left alone in fear of what i might do. I spent my days laying on the sofa depressed as hell watching my son play by himself. I was a terrible mother for quite a while. You paint this smile on for the outside world because I guess that’s what’s expected I don’t really know?

    It’s now 9 months on and I think about Mike every day. Before I go to sleep at night I tell him i love him. I planted an apple tree in my garden for him which is thriving, Ive painted rocks and decorated it in fairy lights so his tree is the most beautiful tree on my street. I make sure Rex knows his uncle Mikey every day. The grief is still as raw as the day I lost my brother but I’ve found different ways of dealing with it. The bouts of depression creep up on me mostly on my days off when i have time to think. But I have no choice but to get through life as best I can without my little brother.

    And somehow I will find a way.

    Z

    Xxx

  • The Binge eating nightmare.

    I have appropriately named this blog “The binge eating nightmare” because binge eating is fucking one big never ending nightmare and it’s something I’ve really been struggling with lately.

    Before I go any further I’d just like to throw a disclaimer out there. What you are about to read is my personal experience and opinion. I have not been officially diagnosed with binge eating disorder nor am I a professional in the subject.

    Now I have always struggled with my weight ever since I was a child. I remember getting up early so I could eat sweets in secret before everybody else got up. I’ve managed to lose weight then regain it lose it again and end up back to square one even bigger then when I started.

    Fast forward to the present day and Oh my gosh I’m in one hell of a pickle. I’m really in deep with no way of getting out. I’ve had a lot of shit happen in my life over the past year or so and for some reason I’m trying to eat my way better. I’m so disgusted with myself I hate what I see in the mirror and all my anxiety riddled brain thinks is “nobody likes me because of my size” “none of my friends actually want to be friends with a person as fat as me” and I won’t lie I sob, most nights because I can’t stop.

    It all starts small. One biscuit here one biscuit there and before I know it the whole packet has gone. Just a handful of malteasers after my dinner. Next thing I know I’ve scoffed the whole box and am looking for the next thing i can ram into my fat gob because I just need to eat and eat NOW half the time I’m not even hungry and whilst I’m filling my fat face I’m already eyeing up what’s next eating so much till I’m ready to throw up. Then I sit and cry at how fat and discusting I am. Then BAM before I knew it I reached **** stone. I can’t tell you how much I’m afraid as I’m so embarrassed my own husband Dosent even know what I weigh.

    It’s a viscous cycle that comes around way to often and it’s something I just cannot break. It’s leading down a dark hole of depression self Hatred, anxiety and much more. At its worst Ive wished myself dead than to be living like this. So I guess I’m putting the feelers out on this post and reaching out to anybody who suffers from binge eating dirorder or anybody who thinks they are suffering. Please get in touch and have a chat you never know we may beable to help each other?

    Z

    Xxx

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