Tutti Bambini katie mini dropside sleigh cot bed review

                                                             

When our daughter started to grow out of her crib, we started looking around for a bigger cot.  We liked the idea of a cot bed that would grow with her until she was ready for a big girls bed.

Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles review

These are the bottles I have used for both of my children, and when I say both I mean the same bottles!  

product review - Tommee Tippee closer to nature digital sensor mat monitor

 I had a tommee tippee baby monitor with sensor mat for my son five and a half years ago, I was so happy with it I bought the latest version for my daughter.  Being a creature of habit I tend to stick with what works for me, so when I was looking at prices for a new monitor I already had a list if must haves on my check list.

blurred lines

As a Mum to two young children, I have a different roles to play.  I am a care giver, I show and teach love and compassion, kindness and caring.  From the first day of being a mummy I knew I had to nurture and protect him, and I had to help him grow into the sort of person that people will like and respect, to have moral values, manners and above all be able to love others as well as himself.  This a job with a lot of responsibility and I knew that it wouldn't be easy.

At first when you have a baby, you have to do everything for them and gradually the little tiny human being you have been given, starts to do things for himself.  I remember shedding a tear the first time he wanted to hold his own bottle and when he said 'no' to  me for the first time.  I was astoundingly proud of my little man's achievement, but knew it was downhill from there. 

The next couple of years he progressed and advanced into a lovely little person who I was showing the way into the big grown up world and he took everything in his stride.  He was never a shy child, he didn't batter an eyelid on his first day at pre-school he simply left me!  As we went along his little learning journey from baby hood into childhood, I  started to teach him basic safety and it soon became apparent that I was contradicting myself rather a lot.  Let me give an example,  we teach our children not to talk to strangers, yet as our children begin to talk and interact with the world around them we encourage them to say hello to anyone they encounter. 
Now if we didn't we would be raising grumpy shy and rather unsociable children.  The lines are blurred, how do you explain a good stranger versus a bad one? do we as adults even know? 

We want our children to grow and be happy as well as be safe, we want to protect our children from horrible grown up things but we also need to teach them what is not safe or good for them. Luckily children are pretty robust and will bounce back from most slight wobbles on their journey.  My son is not in the slightest affected by 'the incident' in BHS, where he got lost. However Mummy was very upset for a few days and did consider putting him back in reins at 5 years old to make sure he never left me again.

As my son gets older he is gradually learning more and more from other people and I have less and less control over what that is, being at school full time means he spends 6 hours a day without me and is learning things that I know nothing about unless he tells me.(anyone with a child this age will probably agree that 'nothing' is a usual answer to the question 'what did you do today at school?)  It is hard to show him that some things are okay in certain situations where in others they certainly aren't.    Again the lines are very blurred. 

Our children are innocent to the world we live in, we want to keep them ignorant to the dangers out there, but at the same time want them to know something are wrong without scaring them. This is why we have age appropriate films and video games, there are certain things a child should not know about!  How do you show a child that him and his best friend having a peeing competition being the shed is a bit naughty, but walking around naked isn't the done thing ? Having a younger sister has thrown up a whole new set of rules for my little boy, we have had to show him that his bits and bobs are private and that so are hers.  But an innocent child also has no awareness of the grown up world if an adult crosses the boundaries of what is acceptable.   

How do we teach our children to stay safe and to say no, when we want them to be protected from a grown up world that is filled with things that are sometimes horrible?   

I had already started to discuss good secrets and bad secrets with my little boy and that his bits are private, but as a parent facing this for the first time and without a parenting manual I was lost in a communication gap.  Then someone told me about the NSPCC campaign called the underwear rule

NSPCC The Underwear Rule

click here to visit the NSPCC website for more info

it is a great campaign that will equip parents and children with language to approach the subject in a non scary too grown up way, and it is rather good actually.

I sat down with my little man and had 'the talk'.  To be honest I am sure I was more worried than he was about it, as he as usual took it all in his stride and I was rather relieved.  So hopefully until he turns into a hairy adolescent that is it for awkward chats and I'm pretty sure that one will be a 'daddy' chat anyway.

So even though we want to keep our littlies little, they will one day grow up and we will all want to keep them safe and able to deal with anything that may arise.  



Emma x

the ten commandments

If you are a parent to one or twenty children, you will know no matter how much preparation you put in to anything or how well you think you know your child they will always amaze you with always being one step ahead of you.  I have put together a list of my favourite life lessons my children have taught me over the past five years......

1. If you have something rattling in your games console it is probably a camera memory card.....or two and they wont come out again !
2. You can't wash mini cheddars
3. Your favourite/most expensive mascara will never recover after your daughter or son has got hold of it
4. However good your speed tidy up before visitors arrive was, your child will locate the most inappropriate object they can find to show your guests
5.  When speaking to someone you really don't know your newborn will suddenly gain fantastic coordination grab your top and bra and expose your breast to them!
6. Baby ballet is totally the place to stand still in the middle of the room making poo noises while filling your nappy
7. Children will always mispronounce, drop letters from or use their own interpretation of words when out in public, my current favourites are clock,  and catch it
8. No matter how many times you asked your son if they need the toilet before you leave home they will always need to go when you are nowhere near one resulting in a fun 100 metre dash
9. If your child hands you a snail shell with no occupant think the worse :p
10. Never underestimate your childs ability to point out your embarrassment,  a sudden gust of wind resulting in everyone in close proximity knowing what colour knickers you are wearing is a great story to recount to anyone they meet.....

No matter what they do and how much they make us blush, we are very lucky to be a witness to their little journey into life and we will all be there waving those ah bless photos around when they grow up

Emma x

jelly worms

I saw this post on pinterest and I can't wait to try it out.  They both love all things icky so I'm sure they will love it.

have you tried this yet?   what did the kids think ?

my little man Joshua David

my beautiful boy - trying out a police car !


Joshua David is 5 years old and my eldest cheeky monkey, he started life very much like his sister 14 days overdue and decided to grace me with his presence only after threat of eviction the same day........ since then he has been my world.  We have had our ups and downs (sometimes it has felt the downs have outweighed the ups), but no matter what he is my little boy and I will fight for him forever.

The first glimpse I had of Josh was not the most photogenic!  I had resisted temptation to find out if he was a boy or girl and had asked for him to be delivered onto my chest, which meant the first thing I saw if him was his bottom!  I remember thinking firstly ooooh a little boy and secondly is that supposed to be blue? :D.  That first night laid next to my newborn son was totally surreal, I did not sleep a wink for fear he would just vanish or stop breathing and I couldn't stop staring at him.  Everything from his perfect little fingers, and toes to his incredibly long eyelashes captivated me and I really did feel I was watching someone else watching their child sleep.

Pretty much from the word go I could see my little boy could and would show me when he wasn't happy and would throw a hissy fit if things weren't to his liking.  The looks of horror his paternal family would throw me when during one of his moments I would simply lay him on the floor until he had stopped being silly were quite frustrating, I was determined that I would not pander to him and as a result his paddy's became few and far between for me.  It was however soon to become apparent that a constant battle between being with me and how I did things and how things happened elsewhere was on the horizon.  I had no control over what happened when Josh was with his other family and very quickly Josh realised that this made things boring and rubbish at home.  Yes I did and still do shower him with love and attention, but at the same time he had a routine and boundaries that sadly were not being followed through elsewhere.

Fast forward to four years later, our family has grown from just Josh and me to Josh, Daddy, Isabelle and me and Josh staying with his other family every other weekend for two days.  Our lovely caring little boy had started playing up at home and at school and it became apparent that I was fighting a losing battle.  I would spend almost two weeks getting him back into his bedtime routine and reminding him that we use manners and have rules in our house so that everyone gets on with each other and we have a happy home without arguments.  Then he would go away for the weekend and I would have to start all over again!  Frustration really isn't a good enough word to cover what I felt.  I felt I was banging my head against a brick wall and no matter how many reward charts/ incentives my normally sticker orientated little man was given he battled with us constantly.  His behaviour at times was starting to frighten me, Josh could lose his temper so badly that I would have to sit on the floor behind him with my legs and arms crossed over him to stop him hurting me or himself.  He would not care about anything being taken away from him due to his behaviour as he knew at the weekend he could do as he pleased, talk about living for the weekend!

Feeling completely at a loss as to what to do with him and after realising that this could not go on any longer, I called in the big guns!!!  I had a chat with his paternal grandmother and told her everything that had been going on, to say Josh was mortified is an understatement!  And her reaction to completely agree that it was no longer acceptable behaviour and that she wanted us all to be on the same page was a huge relief.

So here we are two weeks later and what a transformation!  Josh has been making such a huge effort both at home and school that people are actually commenting on how much happier and less angry he seems.  At home we still have a few power struggles but on the whole he is being great.  I think he sees being good at home as a challenge, and being my son is stubborn and will see things through, luckily in a good direction.  For the first time in years Josh tells me he loves me without prompting even in front of all the mum's and dad's today at sports day!  My happy smiley little man is coming back and life at home for for the first time in what feels like forever is happy.

A perfect parent I am not, I have made mistakes and probably will again but what I have learnt is that loving and caring for a child isn't just about making them happy and giving them what they want, it is about having rules, routines and boundaries which in turn will enable them to feel safe happy and secure.

Emma x