September has been just super!  A business first birthday; Infant Massage Awareness Week and a party; a new venue, an extra weekly class and a lovely Dads’ Workshop; new regular mum meets; a CIMI Sunday feature; and a photo of mine used in the IAIM social media pages.  Before October gets properly underway, I’m taking a moment to reflect on the busiest month since records began. 

Claire Houston Baby & Child Massage is ONE!  It’s been a year of hard work and lots of learning.  I’ve met some amazing people – parents and their babies attending my classes; and lots of fellow mums running a variety of businesses locally.  I’m so grateful for all the support!

To celebrate, I held a little party that coincided with Infant Massage Awareness Week so we could

highlight the wonderful benefits of learning baby massage and I could say thank you for keeping me in business.  We had a fabulous selection of raffle prizes donated by many different local businesswomen and I think pretty much everyone left with a prize of some sort.  The brilliant Kirsty Hall took some perfect photographs of the party too.

Baby Massage classes continue to run from the friendly Glencorse Centre near Penicuik, Midlothian on Wednesday mornings.  These classes are as popular as ever and these days they are fully booked around two weeks before the start date.  The September course filled up extra quickly so I put on an additional class on Thursday afternoons in Roslin – this class was fully booked within 24 hours!  It was very exciting to start teaching baby massage in a lovely new venue, Leaf & Bean Café in Morningside, Edinburgh.  Join us for baby massage then stay for lunch in the café afterwards.

The daddies had an opportunity to learn some baby massage too this September in one of my Baby Massage with Daddy Workshops.  These sessions introduce some simple baby massage strokes that the babies are already familiar with from the five week course.  Dads also enjoyed some discussion about dad-hood and all the highs and lows.

September also saw the first Mums Meet Midlothian friendly get-together at the Glencorse Centre.  Mums and children under five met to play and make friends.  These meet ups will be on the first Friday of every month.

And if all of that wasn’t exciting enough, I was featured this month in a CIMI Sunday project run by one of my fellow instructors (CIMI = Certified Infant Massage Instructor btw). The IAIM is taught in 63 different countries and in this project we are all learning about how the programme is delivered within the UK and throughout the world.  One of the most amazing things about being part of this international organisation is ‘meeting’ so many instructors and learning from each other – the real positive side of social media!

Finally, a photograph that I submitted to the IAIM earlier this year for a competition (which I didn’t win!), was used on all their social media channels to highlight the bonding between mother and baby.  Proud.

I really can’t thank everyone enough for booking classes with me, keeping my business going and paying my wages.  I took my kids to LegoLand this September!

I wonder if October will be as busy – I hope not because I can’t think of an adjective beginning with O….