I am aware that I suffer with a bit of the old ‘OCD’, I love nothing more than a clean house and cannot relax in an unorganised never mind untidy space. It was never really a problem, that was until I had kids. My OCD seems to have ramped up a few notches since having children and I blame it all upon the endless amounts of toys which I feel should be kept tidy, organised and obviously as a ‘complete’ set. Trying to tidy up when you have children is utterly pointless, it is comparable to sweeping the pavements during a storm, a complete waste of time.…
I have come to the conclusion that a four-year age gap between children is definitely the way to go. It’s not as if we ever planned on a specific age gap, it was simply that we got what we were given. I am currently sat at a table watching my two kids run around yet another soft play centre, it’s the Easter holidays after all and whilst the sun may be shining, it’s still fa-fa-freezing outside! Once upon a time I would have been haring around the soft play structure at the speed of light keeping my little man company as he monkeyed around.…
It became apparent a few months back that I may well be in need of a new laptop. My precious, pink Dell had become of a certain age and was starting to ‘go through the change’. My poor old laptop was suffering from over heating and the fan had started making curious, groaning noises. The battery was no longer able to recharge and so was replaced in attempt to rectify the issues and the whole machine seemed to just slow down no matter how many times it went for surgery with the resident IT Technician (my hubby). In essence, my laptop was simply ‘past it’, it even seemed to feel heavier in comparison with the ‘younger models’ now available .My…
There are so many toddler milestones to look back upon, the first night away is always a particularly difficult card to be dealt for both parent and toddler. Here is our experience, well at least what went down over the weekend… E is a completely different kettle of fish to J in so many ways, as with all children, they are all different. E has a completely different character to her brother, whilst she comes across as outgoing, full of beans and running with all cylinders fired at all times, it’s actually as if her bark doesn’t quite match her bite.…
As you know, kids are like magnets when it comes to tablets (or in our house IPads). I know that our two little ones love nothing more than to earn their tablet time and once they have hold of said technology, they are reluctant to give it up for love nor money. The thing of it is, whilst I have a love-hate relationship with tablets and my children, they can come in rather useful at times. I will openly admit (so shoot me now) to using tablets for the following: Distracting my children enough so that they will eat certain foods, they are far too absorbed in the iPad to notice what may be about to enter their mouths.…
April Is Autism Awareness Month, for those of you that don’t know what Autism is now is the chance to research, find out and raise your own awareness of the condition. Here are some facts taken directly from www.autism.org.uk which you find helpful: The term ‘autism‘ is used here to describe all diagnoses on the autism spectrum including classic autism, Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism. Autism is a serious, lifelong and disabling condition. Without the right support, it can have a profound – sometimes devastating – effect on individuals and families. Autism is much more common than many people think. There are around 700,000 people in the UK living with autism – that’s more than 1 in 1001.…
Oh my gosh I have been featured on another blog! To say I am honoured is an understatement. I am officially over the moon, I have had my writing published upon an amazing blog, You can read the post and other posts within the series at whattheredheadsaid. I wrote a piece upon how Paul and I met for Donna’s ‘The Beginning of Us’ series which I’ve greatly enjoyed reading myself, and if you haven’t seen is definitely worth a read. I cannot believe that all of a sudden I am part of it! ? You can read all about how Paul and I met here.…
As per usual on a Wednesday during the holidays, the local bouncy castle madness is up and running at full throttle. My daughter is also at full throttle and cannot decide whether she wants to laugh or cry, either way she knows one thing that she won’t do for sure and that’s queueing to take her turn. Paul and I have both held her whilst waiting for her turn upon the activities, each time we’ve tried as we might to hold her back as she screams, wriggle’s desperately and cries to get her way onto the almighty blow up slide before anyone else.…
Its been a fairly uneventful Easter so far, whilst some of the fault for this lies with us for being far too relaxed rather than taking the kids here, there and everywhere as we normally do during the holidays. The main reason for our lazy outlook has been down to the weather. We would much rather stay in and keep warm and dry as the weather has been utter crud, we have had everything that the sky can throw at us from sunshine to rain to hail and even some flurries of snow for good measure! I thought it was meant to be spring, but apparently the weather has other ideas.…
Just a quick reminder for you all, the clocks ‘Spring forward’ an hour tonight (well technically tomorrow morning at 1am precisely but you know what I mean). This means two things … Firstly, lighter nights or in other words, having to convince your kids that it is time to go to bed despite it still being light outside. Secondly, we will get one less hour in bed as time magically skips forward an hour. Whilst I love the idea of summer nights, realistically it means that bedtime will seem like hell on earth for a week or so whilst our little lovelies adjust.…
My wonderful husband let me sleep in this morning. I say this morning, it was almost afternoon! I don’t usually get to lay in bed but it is something I really needed considering I haven’t been completely 100% since the terrible stomach bug the other week. Upon eventually waking I pottered around and worked upon the Friday chores such as stripping beds and putting washing loads on, all of which was far more laid back than usual and without my ‘little helper’. It felt like some sort of alternative universe actually gets jobs done without having to run back and forth mid-task to entertain a toddler.…
How exactly is it March already? Nevermind that, how on earth have we got to Easter so flipping quickly? It feels as if it was only christmas last week, yet here we are with easter eggs hidden from the kids on the counter tops ready for the weekend. Whilst I allow others to buy our children chocolate easter eggs, I have never bought either of my children an easter egg because I know that they receive far more than enough chocolate from family and friends. Instead, I get each of my children a gift, this is usually a toy of their choice which they can play with, rather than yet another egg and even more sugar which will only send them dolally and result in us having to peel them from the ceiling.…
Oh how I love them both, They are my World, my entire life. Oh how my World has changed Since I became a Mother and a Wife. I smile when I think back to then, I laugh and shake my head. What did I do with all the empty time Other than relax and lay in bed? When kids come along time speeds up, No longer is anything slow. And as much as we try to do our best, Sometimes we have to let it go. How can it be eleven o’clock already And the washing still isn’t in? How can time disappear like this?…
Being a parent can be really tough at the best of times, but during the hard times, it is especially difficult. This week has been particularly pants in terms of parenting, as I have spent the past four days suffering with a horrid sickness bug which completely wiped me out. Without going into too much detail, I will simply say that I have never been more thankful for the toilet being in such close proximity to the bath tub as I have during the past four days! I have often joked about taking part in crash diets to ‘lose a stone within a day’ but let me tell you- this particular episode has completely changed my mind upon such a thing.…
Whilst I may have woken feeling slightly shattered from another late night arranging photos into albums, I can finally say that it is all finished and I now have date ordered physical photo albums of each of my children which are up to date. One piece of advice for any of you reading this post, whilst there are endless ways in which to store photos online, there is nothing quite like the feel and look of a physical photograph. If you are wanting to go ahead and get your photos printed be sure to check out Truprints offers as I have to say (without any sponsorship or even knowledge that I am writing this whatsoever) that they are pretty awesome.…
I am blessed with the most wonderful, beautiful and bright little boy. He is the love of my life and I couldn’t be prouder of him. He is utterly amazing and never fails to make me smile, laugh out loud even at his wicked sense of humour. Our son is a credit to us and anyone that ever wants to criticise him will have me to answer to. I have been contemplating as to whether or not I should document the following blog post, is it fair upon my son to share information upon him with the World? I made the decision to share this purely because I believe that it could help someone else, another parent or carer perhaps.…
We live on a fairly quiet cul-de-sac and whilst there is the odd car or two now and then, people tend to drive safely as they know full well that kids often play out. I often see kids riding their bikes, scooters or kicking a ball waving at me as I stand watching J joining in. I often wonder what the other kids parents are doing as their children play freely under my watchful eyes. Are they twitching the curtains, noses practically pressed against the window like I would be if my child were to be outside without me? I think not… Just how old should J be before I allow him the freedom to play out?…
They do say that bad luck comes in threes. At least I hope it bleeding well does as I have managed to injure myself three times over within the space of four hours this evening. Firstly, I smashed a Port glass and slit my finger open. That proceeded to bleed like stink and so when I saw blood dripping onto the floor moments later I assumed that I hadn’t placed the plaster on correctly. As it turns out my nose had decided to join in and was bleeding profusely, which wasn’t great timing as I was in the process of serving a rather shocked looking customer at the bar.…
Nothing says “I love you Mummy” like a new dishwasher! I never thought that I would be the type to get excited over domesticated gifts such as steam mops, carpet vacs, actifry’s, hot drinks machines or even dish washers, but I bleeding well am! I cannot wait until next week when I will be spared of my marigolds and return to normality. We spent years without a dishwasher and I was completely clueless back then as to how essential they are in terms of time and effort saving. I suppose it was just the two of us back then, we were ‘DINKY’ (double income, no kids yet) so there weren’t great mounds of pots and water fill tumblers to scrub.…
I was happily relaxed on the sofa, surfing the tinterweb reading fellow Mummy blogger Alison Perry’s (Not Another Mummy Blog) latest post whilst E had a nap in my little bubble of peaceful bliss when I suddenly read the dreaded words ‘World Book Day’. Whilst I love reading and I’m very much into encouraging the kids to inherit my book-worm tendencies, I find World Book Day generally irritating for many reasons. Firstly, there are only so many costumes which can be purchased to go alongside your child’s favourite reads. Secondly, In order to get hold of a new costume it means either driving at least fifty minutes to the supermarkets often to find they don’t have anything suitable or in my sons size.…
