My sister has always believed that I would have a surprise third baby in my late 30s. I’m 37 now, 38 in April, so I’m pushing it to be honest. Besides, as much as I love my two existing children, I really don’t think I need another one. Not now. Not when I am only a few years from the second one leaving home.

I had a moment when Belle was about three months old that sticks in my mind. This is unusual for me, as not much generally sticks, but I made such a point of it at the time, to make sure that it did.

I was lying on the bed, at about 9pm. Belle was lying next to me, feeding. We had been in this position for about two hours. Every twenty minutes or so I would think that she was asleep, and I would slowly and carefully begin ‘the roll’ – moving myself away from her on the bed, trying not to wake her. As soon as my boob was out of sniffing distance though, she would start snuffling and squirming.

At this point I would have a choice – shove said boob back in her mouth and sigh heavily, or attempt to get further out of the room, only to suffer the wrath of Belle, in the form of piercing screams. Not exactly a win win is it? There is a particular type of exhaustion that comes with a new baby, especially a breastfed one – a feeling at times that the life is literally being sucked out of you. You know too that there is no opportunity for rest on the horizon, no period of more than an hour or two in the foreseeable future when you won’t have a small person attached to your chest.

I remember thinking to myself right then – ‘If you ever consider having another baby, think about this moment now, this moment where you feel so tired, so done – you don’t ever want to feel like this again.’ View Post

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I had a bit of an early start to Christmas this year. On November 22nd I went to see a live performance of The Snowman at my local theatre, performed by its resident orchestra, Southern Sinfonia.

As a child, The Snowman was a Christmas Eve staple, although looking back, I think it was probably more just a way to kill time until going to bed and waking up again on Christmas Day. This performance was something extra special though – the film was projected in silence onto a screen, while the orchestra played along live with the action. It was absolutely beautiful. Being able to see the instruments playing in time to the film, to see how each sound was created, brought a whole new kind of magic to proceedings. I felt like I was seeing it for the first time.

I’m sure a lot of families would consider The Snowman to be a part of their Christmas traditions, but it’s always interesting to take a peek into other people’s lives at this time of the year because everyone does things so differently. Apart from The Snowman then, what rituals make Christmas for me?

Here are four I wouldn’t do without: View Post

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Have you given any thought to the hackability of your Christmas gifts this year?

Have you given any thought to whether hackability is even a word? It’s probably best you don’t, as I don’t think it is.

Intel Security recently conducted some research into the most hackable Christmas gifts, with a view to offering some top tips on how to protect yourself and your family. Christmas wouldn’t be a terribly jolly affair after all if you ended up the victim of online fraud now would it? That would take the thrill out of your Trivial Pursuit win.

The results surprised me if I’m honest. I always figured that it was just things like laptops, phones and tablets that were susceptible to hacking, but it’s actually a far wider reaching problem than that. The top four, according to Intel Security, are as follows:

   1. Smartphones and Tablets

   2. Drones and Camera-enabled Devices

   3. Children’s Gadgets

   4. Smartwatches and Fitness Trackers View Post

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I was writing a blog post recently for a national newspaper blog. I had included an anecdote from this story that I’m about to tell you, about Belle winning a Halloween fancy dress competition while we were away for the weekend in a caravan at Trelawne Manor Holiday Park, near Looe in Cornwall.

The editor came back to me.

“Do 13-year-olds normally dress up for Halloween?” she asked. “I found that surprising – were you attending a party? From a caravan? I think this needs to be explained a bit more.”

This made me laugh quite a lot.

Perhaps 13-year-olds don’t dress up in London, but down here, in the West Country, where we are clearly more culturally lacking, they certainly do. Also, I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by my needing to explain – was it simply the concept of staying in a caravan that baffled her?

Anyway, that’s not really part of the story, I just thought it was funny. View Post

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A few nights ago I had a phone call from Bee. (She’s 20 now remember, and lives in London – who’d have thought I could have a 20 year old daughter when I only feel about 23?! You’d think there would be some sort of law or test or something.)

Bee was having a bit of a panic, and had phoned me for some moral support. My tactic in these sort of situations, after some soothing deep breathing, is to try and get the other person to laugh. To me, laughter feels like such an important thing – if you can still laugh about something, even when you’re in distress or despair, then that must be a good thing. Unfortunately for the person I am ‘supporting’, I sometimes accidentally laugh at them, which is probably less helpful, but I always mean it in a friendly way, to try and get them to see a slightly lighter side of a situation.

So, once Bee was chuckling a little bit, we tried to come up with a fun activity for her to do that would distract her from worrying about her arm feeling numb, and give her something to focus on. I love that quote about always having your diaries to hand for something interesting to read, so she had a flick through, and confirmed that she did often say hilarious things. I set her the challenge to read through the archives, and pick out some of the funniest, sweetest or most random things she could find.

“Will you put it in a blog post?” she asked.

I paused, worried that I had become the sort of parent whose children felt they couldn’t say anything without it being documented.

“I hope you do,” she added.

So I did.

daughter's diary

In-between literary theory notes: “Rhubarb – in a pan with sugar honey ginger raspberries. Greek yoghurt. Granola.” View Post

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We don’t have a chimney in our house at the moment*, which isn’t really a problem when it comes to Christmas, as no one seems to physically write a Christmas list any more. When they were smaller, Bee and Belle liked to write lists, and there was even cutting and sticking from catalogues, which when I was younger was definitely the cue to get excited about Christmas.

Not any more.

One Christmas, or it may have been a birthday, Bee’s list was in the form of a Pinterest board, and more often than not I’m now just presented with an email or collection of links in a ‘note’ on the iPad. You’re not fooling me iPad – just because you try to make your notes look like they are being written on actual paper, doesn’t mean I’m taken in. I can’t burn that up the chimney for Santa can I?

(Not unless I want to put a new iPad on the list.)

I’m waffling on about this because apparently, according to research from GAME, this week is the week for writing your Christmas list. It’s the week that in the past would have seen kids everywhere getting out their best felt tip pens and festive stickers, but instead now sees them browsing the Internet and sharing gift ideas on Snapchat.

Almost half (49%) of UK children, according to the research, will be starting their lists this week, and around one in three children now use technology such as iPads or mobile phones instead of the traditional pen and paper. A particularly lazy subsection – 19% to be precise – will rely on parents to take note of all the things they point at during TV adverts and during trips to the shops. View Post

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Bee is always telling me that my funniest blog posts are the ones where I’m quoting things that she has said, because she is so hilarious. She also often berates me for writing so much about Belle and how cute/brave/adorable she is. I think it gets on her nerves when I go on and on about all the mini breaks Belle and I have been on, whilst Bee is living in London as a poor student, having to wear her pyjamas on days when her one pair of good trousers are in the wash.

Today then I am killing two birds with one stone and writing a post that talks exclusively about Bee and highlights how funny she is. She can’t fail to be impressed.

So, today, as I’m sure you’ll know if you have opened a newspaper/switched on the TV/opened your eyes, is Back to the Future Day. 21st October 2015 is the day they travel forward to, where everyone is getting around on hoverboards and watching on, casually, as their shoes automatically tie themselves. 

Thankfully, in my opinion, we still walk around like normal people. I can’t even rollerskate, and my attempts at skiing were frankly ridiculous. I’d be an absolute liability on a hoverboard.

Anyway, to celebrate Back to the Future Day and to reinforce my position as ‘the old one’ in our partnership, Bee welcomed me to the day with a friendly text:

Back to the Future Day

You see? Isn’t she funny?

It’s always good to know your children are thinking of you.

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I came across an image this week which made me think “Yes! This is Belle! This is my life summed up in a postcard!”

This was it:

healthy eating tips
Does this sound familiar?

I had thought that by the age of 13, Belle would have grown out of her fussy eating. I imagined a gradual acceptance of onions in cooking, a growing fondness for courgettes, and friendly banter around the dining table where we looked back and laughed at her fussier days.

“How silly of me,” she would say, chomping her way through a kale salad, “to have been so fussy for all those years!”

Alas, that day has yet to come. Still, as a teenager, her list of acceptable vegetables is limited pretty much to:

  • Sweetcorn
  • Carrots
  • Spinach (raw, not cooked)

It’s not cool is it? The tricky bit for me lies in how far to push it. I appreciate that 50 years ago she would have just been made to sit at the table until she had finished, but we don’t live 50 years ago do we? We live in an era where ‘food issues’ are constantly on the horizon, especially with girls, and I worry that forcing her to eat something she doesn’t like will mean I’m responsible, later in life, for her crippling obesity/bulimia/inability to visit a supermarket without having a panic attack. (Delete as appropriate.)

Perhaps I just think about it too much.

I’ve decided though that the time has come to be a little more proactive about things. Being busy is no excuse for not making changes to our diet. I need to man up and remind Belle who’s boss. (I hope she doesn’t read this bit and shout at me.) The Co-op agreed to help me out with some ideas for recipes, snacks and easy switches, and so our 21 day food challenge begins. 

If your family diet could do with a kick up the bum, or that daily moan of ‘what’s for dinner?’ sends shivers down your spine, why not join me?

I’ve always been a fan of The Co-op. We’ve often had one just around the corner from us, which is very handy for me at 5pm when I still haven’t thought about what to have for tea, and I like their ethics, food wise. In theory it’s not hard to make changes; a handful of grapes here, a wedge of cucumber there – it shouldn’t take much to make a difference. The Co-op also have lots of recipe ideas, and plenty of Pinspiration.

healthy eating Pinterest

To kick start proceedings, I suggest keeping a diary of what your family eats for a few days. This was a horrible reality check for me, as I like to think I eat reasonably well. Oh how wrong I was. It’s shocking how easy it is to go a whole day and not eat any fruit…

This is a day from Belle’s diary, so you can see what I mean. (Please don’t report me to anyone):

  • Breakfast – a bowl of chocolate cereal, toast with butter, pineapple juice.
  • Packed lunch – cheese and ham sandwich, crisps, Babybel, yoghurt, satsuma, water. (I often find the fruit and three quarters of a bottle of water at the bottom of her school bag.)
  • After school snack – chocolate chip brioche.
  • Dinner – pasta (not wholemeal), sweetcorn, tinned tuna and pesto. Three chocolate truffles.

Now overall, it doesn’t feel hideous, fairly typical I would imagine, but let’s break it down…

I use the word chocolate three times. Not cool. Even counting the juice, she’s barely scraping two portions of fruit and vegetables on this day.

*takes a minute to reflect on parenting skills*

I then thought it might be a good idea, rather than just spying on what she ate, to ask Belle how she felt about her diet:

Over the next three weeks then we’ll be making an effort to eat better. This might be something as simple as switching from white to brown bread, or it might mean thinking more broadly about how we can encourage Belle to eat a wider variety of fruit and vegetables.

We’d love for you to join us, and share your tips and troubles as you progress, and to get you in the mood, we’re holding a Twitter chat this Tuesday at 1pm. Please RT the invitation and come along with your questions. Experts from The Co-operative will be on hand and I’ll be bringing 20 years of parenting wisdom/sympathy to the virtual table.

 In the meantime, please do leave a comment and tell me about the food issues in your family!

 

 

Project in partnership with The Co-operative Food.

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As you know, last weekend Belle and I went away for the weekend, just the two of us. I think one of the reasons that Belle enjoyed it so much was that there was no wifi in the caravan, and we only had a GPRS signal across the whole park. This meant that she had my undivided attention, something which probably doesn’t happen as often as it should, or certainly as often as she would like.

On the Saturday we went for an outing to Woolacombe, and as we drove back through Barnstaple, my phone started pinging as the 4G kicked in. In the car park at Marks and Spencer, I took the opportunity to catch up on a bit of tweeting and photo sharing.

“I am going to take ten minutes,” I told Belle, sat in the car, having just spent about a million pounds on tasty M&S treats for us, “to pop up a few pictures from the holiday.”

The change in her was instant. She immediately looked away, out of the window, her jaw set in deliberate annoyance. I was pretty annoyed myself.

“Please don’t get cross about it,” I told her. “The whole reason we are able to come away together this weekend is because I am blogging and tweeting about it. I just need ten minutes to share a few photos, that’s not much to ask is it, in return for a lovely holiday?”

She didn’t look convinced. View Post

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A guest post from my daughter Bee.

Hey guys, remember secondary school?! It was fun right? Ehem. Well it might have been, if you were one of the more enthusiastic kids and didn’t spend your lunch time sat under the stairs, wearing too much cheap eyeliner and drinking Relentless, the main food group of emo teens.

I guess most people might not describe those five years as the best of their lives, but this is the time when we grow and develop into the people we are going to become in later life and the difference between being 11 and being 16 is a big one when it comes to personal development.

We all know that being a teenager is never plain sailing, but did you know that according to recent research, 75% of school children and young people living with mental illness go undiagnosed? In my opinion, this is totally unacceptable at such a crucial age.

I remember being 14 years old and one morning breaking down to my head of year in her office that I just “never felt happy, any of the time.” I remember feeling terrified, because I had no idea what was going on. While she was perfectly nice and sympathetic about it all, there just weren’t enough support systems in place for me to get the right help at the right time, and in fact I found that I didn’t really receive the correct professional support until I had started university and it was clearly established that my depression and anxiety wasn’t a “teenage phase”. The Health and Wellbeing Team at my Uni are great, and I wish I could have received the same kind of help in earlier education. View Post

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Back to school time is here once again, didn’t that go quickly? Well maybe it did if you spent the summer travelling round Ireland in a campervan, maybe less so if you spent your holidays like I have before, deciding between another morning of CBeebies or soft play area while silently cursing the rain.

Recently I told you all about the great back to school stuff that Melijoe had on their site for helping your kid look super cool for the start of school. Now I have just spent way too long checking out their gorgeous baby items. (I suppose any time is too long seeing as my youngest is 13). But I wanted to show you some of my favourite pieces so that we can say “oh, oh my god, how cute, aww, lovely” together. And maybe if you actually have a baby, you could buy them and then put up a picture of your baby looking super cute on Instagram, because I can’t. 

Which of these five adorable baby outfits is your favourite?

Billieblush dress

Bunting! Pastel colours! Sequins! This is maybe the cutest baby dress I have ever seen. If I was a baby, I would wear it every day. Actually if they made it in adult size, I would wear it every day now. This super soft dress has a tightend waistband and cuffs to keep your baby snuggly. It also comes in a cardigan, which is just as cute. I would probably wear them together in a bunting dress/cardigan combo.

cute baby clothes

Catimini dress

I love this dress. It’s fancy looking, it’s got a little apple on, what more could you want? The long sleeves and the front and back pleats make this a great outfit for all kinds of occasions, from weddings, to picnics, to just hanging out. It also has a little bunny logo on the sleeve which adds at least 10% extra cute.

cute baby clothes

 

Paul Smith Junior tee

This is so cool! Not only does it have a rocket design but it is actually glow in the dark. I don’t remember them making things like this when I was little. The long sleeves are perfect for the start of autumn for when it’s getting nippy but your child still refuses to put on any kind of jumper or coat.

cute baby clothes

Jean Bourget dress

If you saw my recent post about my new cushions and the chair that I am in love with, you might know why I picked this dress. If I did have a baby, I would put her on the gorgeous mustard coloured chair in this gorgeous mustard coloured dress and all you’d be able to see where her head and her chubby ankles. As well as the colour I also love the little heart pattern and the flared hem.

cute baby clothes

3 Pommes fur coat

You probably all know about the super glamorous (fake) fur coat that I have. This is like that, but for babies. What 3 month old doesn’t want a stylish fur coat? The little ears on the hood make it absolutely adorable. Definitely a must have for any baby for the winter months.

cute baby clothes

Produced in association with Melijoe.

 

 

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Not content with reducing my fiancé to a gibbering wreck by introducing him to One Born Every Minute, we also made him watch Beauty and the Beast this week. He prefers films and TV programmes which are ‘happy all the way through’, and finds the scary scenes in Disney films a little too much. We took care of him though, and distracted him with cocktail sausages, and all was well.

Beauty and the Beast party

The party was a bit of a belated birthday party for Belle, who turned 13 while we were on holiday, and seriously, with a name like Belle I could hardly go with a Pocahontas theme could I? We’d done some thinking about a Beauty and the Beast themed party already, and Sky Movies very kindly sent us a big box full of Princess swag, so we were set.  View Post

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