Chicco Hoopla Bouncer Review

This is the bouncer I decided to buy before my baby was born. I did plan on getting a different colour to the staple blue, but there wasn't any in stock (too popular!) and so it was settled on this one as second best. 

I liked this bouncer above and beyond all as it was quite important to have a few different toys and not the typical ones. I wanted something fairly inexpensive and not something that was going to move too much so when Baby got older they would just rock themselves into an upside-down position. 

My reasons to declare love on this baby item:

1. I like the fact that the material can all come off and be washed. 
2. I like the fact that it has handles on the side to carry it around everywhere - something that is exceptionally useful. 
3. I like the fact that it has feet that fold in so if you're not bothered to carry (like me) you can just drag Baby everywhere. 
4. I like that fact that it also has feet to stay in one position. 
5. I like the fact that it has 3 positions - lying down, slightly upright and completely upright. 
6. I like the toys they're soft and spongy and the extra holes allow for more toys to be squeezed into the slightly stiff holes (when you first get it - they loosen up as time goes on but don't get ruined!). 

I love this bouncer. It's ended up doubling as a high-chair for when I first started weaning and I didn't see the point of a high-chair (and still don't even though I've been gifted a hand-me-down from a cousin).

It has survived pools of dribble and blobs of carrot, sweetcorn and whatever other vegetable puree that missed Baby's mouth or was spat out).


For those mums already out there - what has been your favourite bouncer? What have you considered? And what was a complete dud?


So now that you've read all the reasons why I love the bouncer, maybe you should consider buying it for your little one. Here's the cheapest price I could find.

5 Things All Women Want to do During Pregnancy

I always see blogs/vlogs about what mothers aspire to do during pregnancy that they never get round to doing as much as they would like. These few things are so recurrent that I've decided to do them again, because no one can get enough of it. Simple as.

1) Drink more water. 

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Said every woman/person/alien ever.
If this is the case in normal every-day non-pregnant state of life then why don't you get started before pregnancy or, better yet, afterwards?

A quick google search will tell you the recommended amount is: eight 8 ounce glasses/2 litres/half a gallon. So if you divide this by 500ml bottles that's about 4 bottles in a day? Not bad - have one when you wake up (refreshing!), have one with lunch, have one after tea-time (you'll have peed so much you're tired of counting the trips to the bathroom) and have one with dinner. Sorted!

And if you're a breastfeeding mother you'll actually want to drink all of that. You will force yourself to as well while you cry about how much you miss coke. (I know it's not just me)


2) Keep Fit

I really tried this one (said no normal, average woman ever).

Everyone always want to keep in shape while pregnant, not gain too much weight, and prepare for the birth and after-birth. This does not go well, because we get lazy!

Pregnant women are lazy, hormonal and are dealing with bodily changes that they find disgusting. They want to cut some slack on themselves even though they did want all those benefits from exercising. It's just so hard right now. Let's try tomorrow morning instead?

Or let's say we do get round to doing it, and we feel pretty okay afterwards and a bit lighter and happier, and tired and in need of another shower, because wow sweating 3x more than I did pre-pregnancy. We all know it's only going to last a few days - a week or two MAX. There is no way we are going through the whole pregnancy doing squats and crunches up until the baby evacuates. We are too tired and too fat and too in need of ice cream.


3) Eat healthier

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Okay this one is a bit more  doable if you don't mind or like veggies. There's tons of yummy recipes that you can make with that bursting-full-of-food fridge of yours.
The problem goes back to a recurrent feeling we've been having since this post began: laziness.

The idea is that you're never going to look after yourself more than anyone else, but the point being is that you are growing your child who is depending on YOU and no one else to feed them - therefore you should be offering them the best. Sometimes it's really easy to lapse and I can understand that, but you have the time to eat so, oh my days, get over yourself and your laziness! Get in the kitchen and pull up the recipe that sounds, looks and already tastes good without you making it already!!





4) Organise the house

I love organising the house when I'm pregnant. I want to do everything and clean everything and organise everything and the tidiness!! I want everything to be tidy! There's something so satisfying about everything being ready and put into its proper place. It's the safety of it, isn't it? The satisfaction of knowing that everything will be  fine and good and in its place when you really, really need it to be.

The problem is that it's not always possible to do the whole nesting phase - especially when you can't do the heavy lifting that needs to be done and time with your hubs is quite limited and, frankly, you don't want to spend it cleaning do you? You're getting ready for a baby - you want to do everything you can possibly do without the baby right this minute. Tidying up is not on the list.

Alternatively, you have too many kids and it's just not possible because they keep making a mess of everything they can get their hands on and, to be honest, they can climb now so there isn't anything they can't get. So you're screwed, really.

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5) Answer back to all those invading questions in the most cheeky way possible

There's so many comebacks in our head that pop up whenever someone asks us those awful questions or give us awful advice about babies and kids in general. Please, I could write a novel about this, but that would mean this post gets too long.

In short, stop being so kind and polite to everyone - be tongue-on-cheek and be cheeky! Deliver that comeback with a smile on your face and walk off like you've always wanted to. Do it at least once in the sea of people you've passed off and ignored and then raged over later with your hubs over the phone.

Go on, you know you want to.

Life Update #1

Days like today are special because its a day where I can say that it was a really good one and at the end of the night I might not be feeling a 100% in body but I'm feeling it at mind and that's most important.

There's a lot of days more than I would like to admit that I dont feel good at all. I'm tired and cranky and I'm just not enjoying life. It's the kind of tired where I could have 10 years of sleep and I would still feel abssolutely awful still. It's a state of mind I don't always have control of, but today I'm putting it all behind me.

I feel great today. I missed my baby and I played with her and I had a good day with her and I was sad when it was bed time because I wanted to spend more time with her. These days dont come often and they're not always perfect. I could have been a lot more productive than I was and I wanted to be more productive but that's okay. I felt really good today it was a really good day in a sea of bad weeks.

Pregnancy Reactions

art by bg-light@deviantart

Telling my parents that I was pregnant was the most important thing to me. I remember getting so mad and upset over the fact that my husband didn't take me back home to tell them immediately.

I didn't even think of telling them in an elaborately thought out plan about how I was having their first grandchild, my husband's family's first grandchild from a son (a big deal in asian culture) and the first great-grandchild! I just desperately wanted to burst through their door and announce "I'M PREGNANT!!!!!"

So we eventually went over to my mum's house and sat chatting for a while before I broke it to her. I wanted to tell her by myself so I could just savour that moment (he ended up doing the same to his family too), so when he left momentarily I shrugged the test out of my sleeve and gave it to her.

The first thing that happened was that her eyes bugged out of her face and then said, "Is that what it's supposed to be?" She was very happy that the two lines meant exactly what she thought it meant.


Telling my father was a slightly different story as I was rushing to get my things together - I had dinner at the in-laws at the time he had come back from work. Just five minutes before I was leaving I ran up the stairs, shouting at him to stop, said hello and promptly gave him the pregnancy test. He propped up his glasses, had a good look, turned pink and shouted "OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD." 

Poor man didn't know where to look he was so embarrassed! He walked a few steps away from me and then turned back round and stood for a moment, "Congratulations, I guess!" It took a lot for me to not laugh at him, but time was also short and I gave him a hug and a kiss before shouting goodbye and running down the stairs and out the door.

image by polin@wordpress

My older cousin, someone who I regard as a sister, wasn't one of the first people to tell, but was one of the most meaningful. She lives about 6 hours away from me so unfortunately there weren't many ways I could tell her, and to be honest I didn't want anyone else to tell her and I didn't want to tell her in a way where she would be affronted by the fact that someone else in her family could find out that I told them before I told her. It wouldn't be kind - we've been through a lot. 

So I did the old fashioned and I phoned her and after a bit of our usual conversing about her uni life and how married life was going for me I said to her quite simply "I have something to tell you" to which she fervently replied "okay..." as she knew that the last time I had said this she had gotten the shock of her life that I was getting married. She again had the same speechless (literally so hard to get this chatterbox of a bubbly, wonderful, funny woman speechless) reaction when I had said "I'm pregnant".

There was silence on the other end of the phone and then she began gushing and on the verge of tears she was so amazingly emotional and happy for me. She was amazing and asked all the questions she possibly could off the top of her head.

Putting the phone down after one of her phone calls always leaves me happy and light and good and this wasn't any different.

I missed the pleasure of telling my grandparents, but from what I heard they were extremely excited, happy and a little shocked. Mum had told Nano, my grandmother, over the phone and she threw herself into a fit getting extremely excited and then couldn't keep the news to herself. At the time the hairdresser was coming over to do our hair and as she had just arrived Mum needed to get off the phone. She couldn't wait for baby and showered me with love, stories from Mum's childhood with her siblings and my grandfather, Nanaboo, showered me with food: food made by Nano, fresh fruit and asian desserts. 

This is best told in the messages we sent to each other:

I sent her a picture of my growing baby bump after the last text. She immediately called me afterwards and did her own gushing and brain freeze over the news of it all.

These are my most notable of pregnancy reactions apart from Husband's and Sister's which are in the post below. I love giving people good news and what's better news than "I'm getting married" and "I'm pregnant"?