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Baby Hints & Tips

Blogger of the Week: Sara Keli

Find out about our wonderful blogger of the week, Sara - the owner of Kid Magazine!

Hello Sara! Thank you for joining us for this week’s “Blogger of the Week” at Baby Hints and Tips! We’re very excited to be able to chat with you about all things motherhood and blogging. To start off with, could you introduce us to yourself and your family?

Thanks so much for having me! I’m a mum of two girls, 3.5-year-old Olivia and Josephine who will turn one at the end of this month. I’m married to Pete and we live in Sydney with our two dogs, Bo and Bella, and our cat, Nigella Pawson. Our house is noisy, fun, full of love and there is always someone asking me for food.

If you had to choose a colour to describe yourself, what colour would you choose and why?

I am well known amongst my friends and family for my love of the colour pink and at University had the nickname “pinky”. I’m just drawn to all things pink and love how feminine it is.

What does an average week look like in your household?

Olivia goes to preschool on Monday and Tuesday so those are my days at home with Josie and typically my “work” days. For the rest of the week we have swimming and ballet lessons and depending on how much work I have to do, my parents might help me out by looking after the girls or often the girls will come along with me to work events. The weeks when I have a photo shoot or a magazine deadline are particularly crazy!

I love when the weekend arrives and we can slow down the pace. My husband and I loved eating out for breakfast pre-kids and we still try and do it as often as we can, although with two kids we have to be feeling very brave. My favourite weekends are when we have nothing on and we can potter around the house, eat lunch on our back deck and go for a walk to the park. And then I always spend Sunday night getting ready for the week ahead.

You are the owner of Kid Magazine. How did you get started with Kid Magazine, and what is it all about?

My husband (then fiancé) found the Kid Magazine blog for sale on Gumtree. At the time I was working as an HR Manager in finance but was looking for something I could do when we started a family so we decided to give it a go.

At the time it was simply a fashion and beauty blog for mums and kids. Over the six years I have had Kid Magazine I have transformed it into a place of empowerment, education and inspiration for mums so they have more time to focus on the fun stuff with their kids. I have just published Issue 37 of the digital magazine and still love every minute of what I do.

How long have you been writing for? How have you been kept inspired for so long?

I have loved writing for as long as I can remember. I went to writing camp while I was in primary school and always loved creative assignments through school. I have been writing professionally for the last six years. I think that when you love what you do it isn’t hard to find inspiration. I love writing, I love connecting with other mums through my words and I love the topics I write about because generally I am living those exact experiences. I have hundreds of blog topic ideas sitting in a spreadsheet but I just need to find the time to write them!

Photography by Hipster Mum, www.hipstermum.com

How do you juggle blogging around motherhood and your day-to-day life?

This is so incredibly hard and I don’t know that I do the juggle all that successfully. But at the end of the day I have to be kind to myself and accept the stage of life that I am in with my girls. I’m very fortunate that both my kids will usually sleep until around 8am. As a morning person this is great because I can get up before they do and get through at least some of my work for the day. This usually means my alarm going off sometime between 5-6am. I stopped this habit while I was pregnant with Josie because I was just too exhausted and needed the rest. Up until recently she has still been waking 2-3 times each night, which also made it difficult. Now that she is sleeping more I am back into the swing of things and enjoying my early morning work time. I am a better mum when I have that time to myself to enjoy doing what I love and my girls can then enjoy the rest of the day with a happier mum.

As a first-time mum, what was your biggest concern?

It seems so strange looking back on it but I remember reading that babies will have seven colds in their first year of life so I was really anxious for the first couple of months that she would get sick. It was something I really didn’t need to worry about but for some reason I did. She was an “easy” baby and slept well so I didn’t have too many concerns.

Fast forward to baby number two and poor Josephine ended up in hospital with viral meningitis for three nights at four-weeks-old. Olivia had been sick the week prior and then my husband and I so the doctors think we all had it but as she was so young they were very thorough with their investigations. Thankfully it was viral but still a scary time!

What is your most embarrassing or funny motherhood story (to help us all feel better about motherhood?!)?

When Olivia was two I had the opportunity to interview a kids TV celebrity and I was taking her with me. We stayed at my brother-in-law’s the night before so we were closer to the city and I got up extra early to make sure everything was ready. We arrived early so I had time to find a park without having to stress but just as I was reversing into the car space Olivia started projectile vomiting. Other than the odd milk vomit when she was a baby it was the first time she had ever been sick like that. I knew that if I took her out of the car seat that I wouldn’t be able to get her back in and there was no reception in the basement carpark I had parked in so I checked she was ok and got back in the car. I first had to make the incredibly embarrassing call to cancel the interview and then I called my parents to let them know I was on the way to their place and to get the bath ready. She was completely fine after she vomited and I’m just glad it happened in the car when it did and not 20 minutes later while I was mid-interview!!!

What is/are your best baby hints or tips for new mums out there?

1. Bath the baby in the laundry tub – it is so much easier on your back and you don’t need any equipment!

2. Enjoy every stage for what it is. As a first time mum it can be so easy to look forward to when baby is doing new things like eating, crawling, walking. But you will never have this stage or day back again. They grow so very fast – I can’t believe that by the end of the year I will have a four-year-old and a one-year-old!

3. Find your own flow and stick with it. If I can do my work early in the morning and give the kitchen a quick clean while I am cooking dinner then I know that things are going ok for me. I have developed habits and routines that work for my family to help keep us organised and happy – find what those are for you but be kind to yourself if you fall off the wagon occasionally.

4. Back up the photos on your phone. I once lost all the data off my phone and was just thankful that I had backed it up the day before or I would have lost hundreds of baby photos of Olivia. If you can set up a system for organising your digital photos you will find it much easier to do.

5. Invest in a baby carrier. There were some days when Josephine was very little that I would have done absolutely nothing if I didn’t have a carrier. There is nothing wrong with spending the whole day on the couch under your baby but when you have another child to look after or just want to get a few things done then a carrier is a lifesaver.

Thanks for joining us this week Sara! To find out more about Sara and Kid Magazine, you can visit her the Kid Magazine WebsiteFacebook or Instagram

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