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July 29th, 2010
I’ve found the phone in the bin. (Luckily it rang, otherwise it would have been gone forever).
I’ve found my middle son semi-naked at the bottom of a soft-play slide…
..and found his wet pants and trousers in the ball pit. (Oh, the shame as the ball pit was then closed for cleaning….)
I’ve found both my youngest children standing in the toilet bowl. Separately. Two years apart and I’ve got no idea why?
I’ve found my son and his friend having a ‘naked party’ upstairs when they should have been asleep…
I’ve found lego in my bed, my wardobe, my handbag and my shoes. Ouch.
I’ve found no2 sons ‘cuddly’ in numerous places, including inside a cushion cover (he’d been missing for a few days on that occasion, the little rascal) and on top of an overhead lightshade!
I’ve found that nothing makes bumps and bruises better than a kiss from Mummy or Daddy…
But I’ve lost my heart. My children have stolen it and swear they’re keeping it safe but I think it’s lost for good.
This post was part of Josie’s Writing Workshop and the prompt was inspired by Deer Baby and her postFinders Keepers.
Tags: cheeky baby wipes, josies writing workshop
Posted in Writing Workshop | 5 Comments »
July 22nd, 2010
Today’s post was inspired by the lovely Josie at Sleep is for the Weak and the Sticky Fingers Blog who wrote very temptingly about cooking lots of lovely chocolate goodies.
Although I do love cooking (and chocolate) I thought I’d share my new favourite frugal Mum product with you. Soap. Just plain old ordinary ‘household soap’ which you can get in the cleaning aisle of your local supermarket. Mine cost about 50p for two bars which will last me forever.
It’s brilliant for getting stains out of clothes. Forget expensive spray solutions, or little bars of vanish (which are ridiculously expensive by comparison).
My middle son managed to get one of his nicer tops covered in blackberry juice stains last weekend. You know those obvious purpley red stains that look as if they’ll never come out?
No problem to my chunky bar of green soap. I wet the t-shirt in COLD water (very important as warm water will set the stain) and rubbed the stain vigorously with the soap, rubbing the stained bits together to loosen the stain. Rinse once then repeat and this time, chuck the soap covered item into the washing machine and wash immediately. I did mine at 30c and it worked fine. I almost couldn’t believe it when it came out clean and stain free.
Tags: blackberry stain remover, frugal stain remover, soap stain remover, stain removal tips
Posted in Hints and Tips, Writing Workshop | 3 Comments »
June 15th, 2010
Inspiration today from Josie over at Sleep is for the Weak and The Moiderer who wrote a lovely piece about being a ‘magic mummy’.
I too am a ‘magic mummy’. Â I can do better magic than Harry Potter, Dumbledore or Gandalf.
And I can prove it. Â On any given day, come to my house and watch me conjure:
- a scrumptious meal from two limp spring onions and some leftover chicken
- missing toys / laptop chargers / cuddlies from thin air
Each morning watch me transform:
- three  sleepy, scruffy, semi-naked monkeys with bedhair into three beautifully attired, smiling faced cherubs, ready for nursery and school
Each evening watch me as I do my disappearing act:
- making all the mess of the day (toys, odd socks, random plasters, single piecs of jigsaw) vanish into it’s rightful place
- …and the biggest disappearing act of them all, is me off to bed by 10pm because I’m knackered!
Tags: bamboo baby wipes, bamboo washable baby wipes, magic mummy
Posted in Writing Workshop | 2 Comments »
June 8th, 2010
The lovely Josie over at Sleep is for the Weak inspired me today. One of the writing workshop prompt this week is about ‘Time’ and with my eldest boy fast approaching his 6th birthday it made me think about the relativity of time. My take that is, rather than Einsteins.
Did you know that in the quantum world it is possible for an object to be in two places at the same time? Or that time isn’t always the same, it changes depending on where you are? To demonstrate, imagine you have a twin. You stay on earth, your twin goes into space on a fast rocket ship for 10 years; when they come back, they’re a couple of years younger than you are. Bizarre.
I reckon that this same quantum theory is responsible for changing time when you have children. My eldest little boy will be six next week and who knows what happened to that time? But it starts before they’re even conceived…..
If you’re ‘actively trying’ for a baby, the period between ‘doing the deed’ and waiting for your period to come. Reality: two weeks. Helen’s quantum theory: A LONG time.
Doing a pregnancy test, after weeing on the stick. Reality: 1 minute. Helen’s quantum theory: Neverending.
Pregnancy Gestation. Reality: 9 months give or take a few weeks. Helen’s quantum theory: depends on whether it’s a first child or not. First pregnancies seem to take forever, second/third pregnancies fly by because you don’t have time to think about it….
Pushing your baby out. Reality: Could take a few minutes to a few hours. Helen’s quantum theory: Given that you’re inhabiting a different ‘I’m giving birth’ universe, time is suspended, so just make up any length of time that seems appropriate, depending on how many drugs you’ve taken.
First cuddle. Reality: minutes or hours. Helen’s quantum theory: Doesn’t matter how long it lasts, you’ll remember it forever.
Potty training. Reality: one week to 6 months. Helen’s quantum theory: When your toddler appears at the bottom of the soft play slide, sans pants and trousers because they’ve wee’d in the ball pool, your walk of shame makes it feel like an eternity.
6th Birthday Party. Reality: 6 years. Helen’s quantum theory: feels like the blink of an eye, how can my baby be a big boy of six?
Tags: baby wipes, bamboo baby wipes, cloth baby wipes
Posted in Writing Workshop | 2 Comments »
May 18th, 2010
Jodie’s writing workshop this week came at an appropriate time. Inspired by the (Nudie) Princess Diaries and tales of wanton destruction wreaked by small children, and given that both my littl’est ones (F who will be 3 next month, and J, 18 months) have been in tornado mode for the last week, it struck a chord with me.
We’ve had a trail of devastation this week that would compare favourably with two mini-tornadoes.
Firstly, we had ‘the domino game’ where F (probably with J as his willing accomplice) dropped their big brothers domino’s down the outside drain, one by one. Daddy fished them out with BIG rubber gloves on and after a good bleaching they’ve come to no harm, but still.
Then we had ‘book destruction’ when F destroyed one of his favourite books for no apparent reason, other than because he could?
But this was topped yesterday by ’scribbling on the living room fireplace’. Possibly F chose the living room fireplace because it has a nice plain cream background, against which his artistic scribbles would stand out nice and clearly. Possible he was just scribbling on the nearest thing to hand. Who knows.
Unfortunately I didn’t catch any of these classics on camera, but thought I’d share a few oldies, so you get a sense of what I’m up against.  Take J for example. As you can see, last week she decided for whatever reason, that climbing INTO the toilet was a good thing. What’s slightly strange is that her brother, F, at about the same age, did the same thing. What’s that all about?
There was also the memorable incident of the weetabix….when F was only 6 months old!
Or when he progressed to eating the newly sprouted sunflowers (his brothers pride and joy…)
But there’s not much which they break which can’t be fixed (except sunflower seedlings of course), so I guess we just grin and bare it and try to record as much as possible for posterity….
And of course, it’s lucky I’ve got my Cheeky Wipes to clear up all the mess!
Tags: cheeky baby wipes, mucky baby, toddler destruction
Posted in Writing Workshop | 8 Comments »
April 13th, 2010
Todays blog update is inspired by Josie, over at Sleep is for the Weak who prompted me to write about moving house.
I have one piece of advice. If you find yourself moving house with a tiny baby, use a reputable removal firm. With new lorries who don’t double-book themselves!
On both of the last two occasions that I’ve moved house, I’ve done so with a tiny baby. Madness. 6 years ago we lived in Walthamstow, East London in a 3 bedroom terraced house. Walthamstow was great for us while we both worked in London as it was fairly close to the tube which was a quick and easy way to get to work in the city. Unfortunately however with a small child imminent and no friends or family nearby I began to feel more and more isolated towards the end of my pregnancy, worrying about how I’d cope alone.
So, at 34 weeks pregnant and panic starting to set in, we decided to swap our city living to move to the coast, sunny Seaford to be exact (just between Brighton and Eastbourne). It wasn’t exactly the centre of the universe in terms of nightlife, but it did have a direct train service to London Victoria – well one train a day each way was direct. The house was a townhouse, brand spanking new so we could just move in without having to do anything. We signed the papers and waited for contracts to be exchanged…
But at 39 weeks, along came no1 son, a few days early but very welcome and we ended up completing on our new house when he was just two weeks old. Come moving day, our in-laws and my mother helped move us, along with the removal van. Our movers were recommended by my FIL and although they were very helpful, their van was a bit old and broke down on the journey back, eventually arriving three hours late, on the back of a rescue vehicle! By the time they arrived, I was past myself with tiredness and when my FIL spilled orange fizzy drink all over our new cream carpet, I have to say that I wasn’t terribly gracious, considering that he’d just helped us move house.
 Wallpaper stripping Three years on. We’re settled in Seaford, coping with the commute and have started to build a circle of friends.  However the townhouse we so speedily settled for is up for sale because they layout doesn’t make it ideal for family living. It takes a while to sell, but when it does, we buy a tiny bungalow ‘with potential’ to renovate, extend into the roofspace and be the family home we long for. Unfortunately, once again we find ourselves exchanging contracts in the last weeks of pregnancy and again, complete when no2 son is just two weeks old.
I have to say that this moving experience was horrible. We were moving in with our in-laws temporarily, so that we could do some of the work required without having to live in it. The removal company we used were unreliable, so we ended up carting a lot of it round ourselves in carload after carload. It took us two days to clear our old house and most of it went into storage (and then had to come out again a few weeks later).Â
Once we moved in, I spent three weeks stripping wallpaper in preparation for the electrician to come in and rewire, then a further three weeks painting once the walls had been made good. All of this with a tiny baby, less than 3 months old! I remember phoning my Mum, sobbing because I was only spending time with no2 son when he woke needing fed, which gave me a much-needed rest. And at 6 weeks old, we ended up without a kitchen for a week while the new one was installed, far from ideal with a tiny baby and pre-schooler living there.
We’ve been in this house for 3 years almost now. I’m starting to get itchy feet to move, but thankfully there’s no small baby around this time adding pressure…..
Tags: moving house baby; reusable baby wipes
Posted in Writing Workshop | 1 Comment »
April 1st, 2010
Can you remember before you were born? Well, that’s what being dead is like.
This weeks writing workshop is inspired by Chris at Thinly Spread who is struggling to explain ‘What comes next’ to her 12 year old son, without the comfort blanket of ‘Faith’.
Like Christine, I don’t have ‘Faith’ (with or without George Michael soundtrack). Being born and brought up in Northern Ireland at the start of the troubles put paid to any interest in belief for me, aside from the many sweeties I won at Sunday school for being a good girl and memorising the books of the bible in order. And the stories were good. Bloody, violent and supernatural (plagues of locusts, angels bringing death to all 1st born sons, fathers giving their sons as blood sacrifices), gruesome stuff! It was the stories and sweeties I wanted, not my soul saved.
I couldn’t understand (and still don’t) the idea of a wrathful god who incites violence against other people for not sharing the same beliefs. Seriously, you want to KILL someone because they don’t believe the same mythical creature as you created the world in 7 days – even when we know scientifically that isn’t the way it happened?
Anyway. My no1 son started to ask questions about death and dying when he was about 4. They started from talking about our family tree. ‘Mummy, who is your Mummy?’ ‘And who is Momo’s Mummy?’ ‘And where is our great-granny?’, which lead to the BIG question ‘What is dead?’.
I have to say I struggled a little bit with this one, until I read the brilliant ‘God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. His explanation is the one that I now use as standard. ‘Being dead is just like the time before you were born. Can you remember that?’ It’s not scary, it’s completely logical and it’s almost familiar…it’s something even a 5 year old can relate to.
Anyway. It doesn’t help with the tears about how he doesn’t want to be dead, he likes being alive but I try to reassure him. ‘Well, that’s why you need to be a good boy and enjoy your life while you have it. Make the most of it, be happy and have fun because you’re here for a good time, not a long time.’
It’s something we’d all do well to remember.
Tags: cheeky baby wipes, cheeky cloth wipes, explain death to a child
Posted in Writing Workshop | 3 Comments »
March 25th, 2010
…they could change your life. Like Josie over at Sleep is for the Weak I had a job during my teenage years which has had a massive impact on my life. As you’ll know if you read my blog regularly, I’m a bit of a foodie (without the pretentiousness that goes with the term) and a lot that passion for food was formed during the 4 years that I worked at a local fruit & veg, cum deli Homegrown. Even now, if I walk into a ‘proper’ greengrocers, the smell transports me back in time to the days of big perms and leggings (1st time round!)
I started working at Homegrown when I was 13, doing 2 afternoons a week after school and all day Saturday. It was a corner store and well known in town for being the best greengrocers – if slightly more expensive than the rest. Once you worked there though, you knew WHY they were the most expensive. Trevor and Margaret, the owners were fastidious about the quality of the fruit and veg on sale. Woe betide you if you changed a box of apples and didn’t rotate them or put a bruised apple out on display!
The after school days were my favourite as I’d usually be sent to work in the kitchen, helping Ethel produce the lovely salads for the deli. I learned how to cook beetroot, chop coleslaw, make the BEST potato salad ever, peel anything super quickly and prepare gorgeous chicken liver pate – all of which are still being sold there today. There were usually about 15 different salads for sale and a selection of cooked meats – all prepared in-house using the freshest ingredients.
Saturdays were always busy. First thing, you’d be making sure that there was as much stock out as was humanly possible and that everything was looking good. This was easier said than done, because you couldn’t just chuck more on top, you had to rotate the older ones to the top which often meant lifting a whole box out. Then as the town started to waken up, it would get busier and busier. We worked behind a counter selecting all the produce for customers ourselves, totting it up on the back of a paper bag and then taking their money. There were often 5 or 6 of us working behind the counter at the same time, with Trevor and the saturday boy Philip topping up stock and carrying boxes and bags out to cars. It sounds a bit old-fashioned now, but you really got great service.
Mostly it was great craic. We had a laugh and plenty of banter betwene ourselves and with the customers. My most embarrassing moment was when a good looking boy came in specifically to buy a banana and two kiwi fruit. I blushed from the top of my head to my toes and couldn’t make eye contact (and I still think that Trevor might have put him up to it!) I remember the Christmas that we all worked until midnight preparing almost 100 fruit baskets for collection on Christmas Eve.
Mostly I remember Trevor & Margaret’s committment to their business, passion for what they were selling and fantastic Customer Service. They’ve definitely helped shape me in what I do and how I do it today.
Tags: part-time jobs
Posted in Writing Workshop | 1 Comment »
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