Here I am then, jumping on the Mother’s Day bandwagon.

I do write a parenting blog I guess, so it would be rude not to give at least a little nod to it. In fact, I have been doing quite a bit of Mother’s Day related work this week, including some radio appearances with Sizzling Pubs around their recent Mother’s Day survey.

The research found that what mums would most like for Mother’s Day is simply to have the whole family sat down around the table for a nice meal out. It doesn’t have to be fancy, and they don’t want expensive gifts, they just want that time together with the people they love.

Ahhhh!

That’s nice isn’t it?

Almost as nice as this note Belle once wrote to me, thanking me for her hair, which is odd really, as my hair gene is not the strongest.

cute mother's day notes View Post

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how to tie shoe laces

The other day we were in the living room, getting ready to go out. It was one of those annoying situations where you’ve told everybody you want to leave the house at 2pm sharp, and at 2.05pm your boyfriend says he just wants to clean his teeth and your teenage daughter is stomping about, looking like leaving the house with you is really the very last thing she wants to do in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

(Interestingly, I have spoken to Belle about this and she assures me that even during the moments when she’s looking at me with eyes that say ‘I want to stab you with a fork’, she really doesn’t dislike me at all.)

Belle was putting her shoes on. I was watching in that irritating way that mums do when they want to make a point about being in a rush.

The shoes she was putting on had laces, and as I watched I realised she was tying said laces in no way I had ever seen before. View Post

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laundry hacks Ecover

If you had to rate your household chores, where would you put laundry? For me, it’s definitely in the top five chores I hate.

It’s the relentlessness of it. With some chores, like tidying bedrooms or cleaning ovens, you feel at least like if you do a really good job of it, you won’t have to do it again for a little while – the effort is proportional to the reward. Other things, like dusting, you can choose to ignore completely should you so wish and nothing awful happens – the children can still leave the house looking clean and no one dies or anything.

Laundry though. Laundry is just there. All of the time. 

You can’t just think to yourself ‘let’s give ourselves a break from the laundry this month’, or ‘I’m going to have a massive laundry day this week and then I won’t have to do any for a fortnight’, because it just keeps coming regardless.

(Depressed enough yet?)

Fear not.

The lovely natural cleaning gang at Ecover has been in touch with some helpful hints and I’ve also asked my Twitter chums and scoured Instagram for super cool laundry hacks, to help lighten the laundry load. Ecover’s Non-Bio Concentrated Laundry Liquid tackles tough stains, even at 30 degrees, so is bound to remove the most stubborn of marks and is gentle on sensitive skin. If you’re still not convinced, how about outsourcing your laundry to a company like J & G Laundromat? Then you barely have to think about it!

Do you have any good laundry tips? Have a read through these and please do add your own! If you’d like to share them with Ecover on social media, don’t forget to use the hashtag #LightentheLoad. View Post

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I’m a mummy, as you know, so I thought I’d ask my daughter Bee what Mother’s Day means to her. 

Mother's Day

Mother’s Day.

It’s a very important day for celebrating women who have pushed something out of their vagina, or even had it pulled out the tummy way.

I would like to say I’m always well prepared for Mother’s day, but that’s a lie. It always falls in between my parents’ birthdays which means I am both A) skint and B) all out of ideas. Being 20 I can’t really get away with painting half an egg carton and proudly presenting it to my mother in the morning, along with a piece of burnt toast and a precarious glass of orange juice. I think she would probably think that I was scraping the bottom of the Mother’s Day barrel a bit. View Post

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They’re here! At last! The Christmas holidays are upon us! It’s that wonderful time of the year where it’s totally OK to replace tea with sherry and have mince pies for breakfast! Who am I kidding? I had mince pies for breakfast on November 1st. It’s socially acceptable now though.

The Christmas school holidays are very different from the summer holidays. They are shorter, obviously, but because it’s cold and dark most of the time, there isn’t the same pressure to be outside, doing something wholesome. In fact, lounging around on the sofa with the remote in one hand and a box of Elizabeth Shaw mints in the other is practically obligatory.

Still, if you do want to do something other than watch the Christmas movie channel, (actually a thing), then here are some ideas for you for fun things to do with your family over the Christmas holidays:

Make a plan

This, in my eyes, in essential. You can’t just go about having spontaneous Christmas fun willy nilly, it needs to be organised. Plus the act of making the chart is fun in itself. Who cares if you actually do the activities, just enjoy getting your metallic Sharpies out.

Fun things to do with family over the Christmas holidays

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There is one household task that I feel, more than any other household task, defines your attitude to housework. It’s the one thing that you could take in isolation and declare, confidently, whether or not someone was a proper grown-up or a true slummy mummy.

It’s laundry.

Laundry is definitely not my thing. 

Of all the household chores, I don’t actually mind doing it, but I am not good at it.

Essentially, I’m just too lazy. I simply cannot be bothered to sort through piles of washing, looking at labels, separating colours, changing temperatures… Seriously, who has time for that? I mean sure, it does sometimes end in unfortunate incidents like the one recently, where I accidentally washed and tumble dried some of fiancé’s very expensive suit trousers, but I’m sure he knows really that my heart was in the right place.*

The fact is that sorting dirty washing is boring. Washing labels are boring. Perhaps I would be more inclined to read them if they had cute little pictures of squirrels on them, holding up temperate signs? Perhaps.

It was at roughly this point in the train of thought that Super Savvy Me decided to embark on a little project to liven up washing symbols. They enlisted the help of a few bloggers, and their children, to come up with some more exciting and imaginative variations on washing symbols. They’ve added these to their guide to understanding washing symbols, and I’m going to tell you about Belle’s here. View Post

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This week we went to watch Belle’s school Christmas concert in the big church in the middle of town. She was doing a duet of the French version of Away in a Manger with her friend Ella. In case you don’t know it, it has a different tune, but, confusingly for me, isn’t in French.

They were by far the best thing there, obviously. Watching them, I realised how proud I was not just of Belle, but of Ella too, of the two of them together. I’ve known Ella since she was about two weeks old, when she first met Belle, and watching them sing I realised that we were actually all standing in the church where they met for the very first time.

Remember this story about the church? It was in the little room upstairs that we went to breastfeeding group every week. I’d like to say something poetic about it being where Belle and Ella’s friendship first blossomed, but really all they did was lie next to each other on the floor and cry a bit, while Lucy, Ella’s mum, and I complained about them. Nothing much changes really.

Here they are when they had really chubby cheeks and used to like going on hiking mini-breaks together:

Belle and Ella View Post

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A guest post from Bee.

Hello again. London correspondent Bee here. I’m basically writing stuff on here all the time so you would have thought she could have handed over at least one of her 2015 Vuelio blog awards to me right? Apparently not.

Sigh.

Well I hope you are all having a nice ‘run up to Christmas’, as adults say when they’re trying to make small talk during the month of December. It’s the Christmas version of ‘How is uni going?’ (The answer to which is always ‘yeah great, thanks!’ when really you are silently crying inside.)

London is really nice around Christmas time though. Unless you are on Oxford Street. Then it isn’t nice and it’s like one of those dreams where you’re stuck somewhere and you’re trying to move but you can’t and you’re not sure you’ll make it out alive. But in general, London is all lovely and twinkly and everyone has some kind of hot beverage on the streets, which makes me happy because I barely ever see people on the street with drinks and it makes me wonder if they are hydrated enough.

Anyway, there are lots of things to do in the Christmas holidays here, whether you are a resident or you are taking a fun trip down for the day. I’ve got some ideas for if you’re not coming here to Christmas shop/lose your mind. View Post

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Fancy yourself swooshing down the slopes? Like the idea of sipping a little something in the evening, feet warming by a fire, admiring the snowy views?

Well, good news – all you need is a child aged between 6 and 11, and a packet of felt tips. It’s couldn’t be simpler!

The competition is being run by Goodyear, the tire people, and is all about reinventing the wheel. Yes, yes, I know the idea is that you don’t reinvent the wheel, but Goodyear is all about innovation – cars wouldn’t be much use in the snow if they still used solid wood cart wheels would they? In the case of tires, progress is definitely a good thing.

The competition is to celebrate the launch of the new Goodyear winter tire – the UltraGrip Performance Gen-1 – and to enter, Goodyear are inviting children aged 6 – 11 to design the tires of the future, using their favourite Goodyear template. The tires should be practical for snowy weather, but funky too – let your imagination run wild.

Goodyear #reinventingthewheel win a ski holiday View Post

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Are any of your kids getting a scooter for Christmas?

We’re a little bit past the scooter age, but we’ve had our fair share of them in the past. We’ve had the tricky (for me) ones where you sort of have to lean to turn corners, and the metal ones that like to spin around and bash you on the ankles. They can be great for encouraging small people to leave the house, but you do have to be a little bit careful to use them properly. One of my pet hates is when kids scoot on pavements at school pick up time – they don’t seem to understand that other people have to use the pavement too.

*makes effort to stop sounding like an old lady*

Anyway, if a scooter is on the Christmas list, you might want to check out the scooters at Halfords, as they have 10% off until Monday, which means extra money for you for gin. Hoorah! They’ve also put together this scooter guide, to help your kids scoot in safety and do cool tricks. View Post

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Do you struggle to buy Christmas gifts for the men in your life? It can be pretty demoralising in the ‘gifts for me’ section in shops – not all men want cufflinks in the shape of golf balls.

To help you out, my fiance has put together a selection of things he would like for Christmas, partly to help you out, but also at a prompt for me I think. As if I would forget the Ashes DVD.

…

Ah, Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. That said, there is nothing worse that the sad feeling of receiving gifts from your loved ones that don’t quite hit the mark having put in a good deal thought and effort buying for them. Shallow and materialistic? Maybe, but my fake smile would have got me into RADA the year I received a poster of Kermit the frog with “frame to follow” written on the gift tag, (it never has), or the year when I was unsubtly told by my whole family that I needed some exercise. In total, I received 35 pairs of white sports socks.

If you’re struggling to find something for the man in your life, then fear not. Even if he’s a die hard Doctor Who groupie or insists every year on an addition to his collection of cool hats, you can still branch out and get something he will love – here’s my guide to what to buy. There is something for everyone…

A shirt from Emmett

At the top of the class, it’s an Emmett shirt. Let’s be utterly clear about this – Emmett shirts are things of unparalleled beauty. It’s no exaggeration to say that every time I have worn an Emmett shirt it has been commented upon and complimented. Even their plain white shirt. They’re not cheap, but they don’t look or feel cheap. They feel stylish and beautiful, are perfectly cut and last for longer than any other make of shirt I’ve owned. I challenge anyone to wear an Emmett shirt and not return to buy another. And another. And so on. View Post

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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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