Mum In The Madhouse - Parenting without stabilisers

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We are suckers for dogs and I have to say that my boys, who are 4 and 5 love the Buddies movies.  MadDad and I may not feel that they are the best childrens movies out there, but they do tend to have good messages within them and are pretty harmless too.

So when I was offered the chance to get an early copy of the new Spooky Buddies movies, which is released today, I said yes.  Friday was a school inset day for us and also pretty miserable, well I felt miserable as I am suffering with a terrible head cold and the boys are still coughing 3 weeks on from their Antibiotics, so we decided to have a duvet day and snuffle up on the sofa.

Spookie Buddies is set at halloween, so a perfect watch for this time of the year and tells the tale of a Warlock that wants to take over the world and only the buddies can save the world with the help of their friends of course. Mini loved it and he watched it twice on Friday and again a couple of times over the weekend.  Maxi also watched it twice and was and is very taken with the pups.  It is easy family watching, with a firm moral message throughout with lots to make the children giggle.  What 6 year old boy can resist a farting dog saving the day?

To celebrate the release of Spooky Buddies on Disney DVD from 10 October, we’re giving away a copy of the Buddies Pack box-set to 3 lucky winners! The quintet of irresistible talking puppies, Disney’s lovable “Buddies,” are back for a ghoulish good time in a fantastic all-new Halloween-themed adventure, Spooky Buddies. Overflowing with trick-or-treat action, the ‘Buddies’ films are favourites of families and kids of all ages.  The Buddies Pack features all 5 adventures; Air Buddies, Space Buddies, Santa Buddies, Snow Buddies and latest adventure Spooky Buddies. To be in with a chance of winning this wonderful prize, just answer the following question in my comments: Which of the following is not a film from the Buddies series? a)      Spooky Buddies b)      Air Buddies c)       Mountain Buddies Terms and Conditions:

• • This competition will run from the 10 October to noon on the 21th October 2011
• • The winner will be chosen at random and announced on this page on 21th October 2011
• • Competition is open to residents of the UK and NI only
• • Prize is non-refundable and no cash alternative is available

 

Winners  

Sarah Anguish (@littleboo_21)

Carolin

Cara

For me vegetables taste better when steamed and we have pretty much always had a steamer, be it an electric one or as currently one that permanently sits on my hob.

So I was really excited to be sent the Morphy Richards Intellisteam, especially as all my vegetables are ready for harvesting in the garden.  The intellisteam is unique as it has three compartments in which you can steam different foods and you can also set the compartments for different times and the steamer will ensure that they all finish at the same time, which means your food will be perfectly cooked and ready to serve at the same time.

I have really found the intellisteam easy to use, it is intuitive and does everything is it supposed to do and you can cook pretty much everything in it, from the standard veg to rice, sauces, fish and meat.  My only gripe is why are kitchen gadgets getting bigger, when other gadgets are getting smaller!

From a practical point of view, the steamers parts are suitable for the dishwasher and you can also pop the ingredients in to it and set the timers on a delay too.  The intellisteamer also has a keep warm facility do MadDad's meal will never have to be fed to the proverbial dog!

Special Offer

As part of the Morphy Richard's houseproud innovator team, I have a speical offer for all my reader.  Buy an Intellisteam from the Morphy Richards website and get 35% off by quoting the following voucher code at the checkout stage - HPI8135

 

As many pople are awre i went to a roundtable at Heathrow Airport over the summer and was very concerned when i heard the news about buggys being banned in terminal 2, so asked the team at Heathrow to provide me with a statement. Here is their response "We don’t believe that many parents will have sympathy with Menzies on this issue.   At Heathrow we are investing £1 billion a year  including a brand new Terminal 2 which will eventually replace the facilities at Terminal 1.  In the meantime, we will be working with Menzies to ensure they offer the same service to parents as all other ground handlers at Heathrow” The team at Heathrow have also promised to provide me with an update next week on their discussions and the actions they have taken since the round table.

We have wooden floor downstairs and carpet upstairs.

 

1. LEGO.  Have you ever trodden on a lego brick, nuff said!
2. Little plastic soldiers. As painful as LEGO, but not as durable, so not only do you end up with a sore foot, but an unhappy child too
3. Paper. The last time I slipped on a piece of paper I broke my big toe.  On wooden floors, paper or magizines means a slip hazzard and you will often find me legs akimbo on the floor
4. Wet patches.  Thankfully now my boys are five and six these patches tend to be drink, but in the olden days you never knew what you might be stood in (I will leave that to your imagination)
5. Cars.  Oh yes cars can soon have you propelled across a room at breakneck speed too
6. Crayons.  Ever twisted your ankle rolling on a crayon?  Not yet, well there is always time, trust me
7. Weetabix.  That stuff is cement, once dry it will never come off.
8. Muslins.  Those innocent cloths of many uses, they are deadly let me tell you, especially when on a wooden floor
9. Scooters. Why oh why do the boys insist on bring these things indoors, one of these days they will kill me
10. A child.  Yep they tend to get underfoot too!

I also make sure I never, ever enter a loo without shoes on especially with two boys with poor aim!

I have discussed before on this blog why breakfasts for children are so important and the fact that 1.7 million children did not eat breakfast.  Kelloggs have just completed some further research in to breakfasts with UK children and the results are equally shocking:

• 1 in 7 UK children do not eat breakfast in the mornings – rises to 1 in 5 of secondary school children
• The main reason school children skip breakfast because they have no time in the morning
• UK Children spend £650m each year on buying food in shops on the way to school -
• 25% of children eat crisps, chocolate or burgers on the way to school
• 1 in 4 girls at secondary school skip breakfast and 14% of them do so because they are dieting

Of those not eating breakfast, a third, that’s 325,000, will have no food all morning and won’t eat or drink anything until lunchtime

Please take some time to read and digest the above statistics and I hope that you feel as shocked as I do.  Now I have two boys that are alike chalk and cheese, Maxi adores breakfast and never leaves the house without it.  Mini is somewhat of a challenge, but I have learnt that some food, any food is better than nothing and make sure he eats some breakfast before leaving the house.  But not all parents have the luxary of time that I have with my boys or actually have food in the house to feed their children on a morning, which is where breakfast clubs come in.  Breakfast clubs should be there not only as wrap around care for working parentse, but also to help children who do not get the time or ability to eat on a morning.

Kellogg's are aware that funding to Breakfast Clubs are being cut be local government and have introduced their Give a child a breakfast campaign, which aims to give a minimum of £300k to provide breakfasts for one million children by making a donation for every box of Cornflakes sold. Schools can then apply for a grant of £450 to help their breakfast club.  You can find more information at www.giveachildabreakfast.co.uk

COMPETTION

Kellogg will be giving you the chance to win a year supply of breakfast (approx 100 boxes) for your school with eight blogs over the next eight weeks.  So that is 8 schools supplied with a year supply of breakfasts.  In order to be in with a chance to win this, all you have to do is watch this fantastic video leave me a comment below telling me what the little boys favorite breakfast is.

I will pick the winner by random number generator on Friday 7 October

Terms and Conditions:

• This competition will run from the 29 September to noon on the 7th October 2011 • The winner will be chosen at random and announced on this page on 7th October 2011 • Competition is open to residents of the UK and NI only • Prize is non-refundable and no cash alternative is available

Keep your eye on the following blogs if you are not lucky enough to win with me. Cheshire mum, Squidyboo , And one more means 5, Not such a yummy mummy, The Coffee Lady, The Five F's and Juggle Mum.

Sorry for the delay in announcing the winner, we have been struck down with the lurgy.

The winner is comment 2, which is Lynn.  Can you get in contact with me Lynn and I will pass your details on to Kelloggs.

We did it!  No actually he did it.  Mini diched his dummy last night, just like that.  I asked him if he thought that it was time to go and he siad yes and off to bed without one he went and slept though the night.  he is an utter star and I am so proud of him.

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Innocent Drinks sent us some lunch boxes to decorate along with a sample of their new juices and asked for me to discuss with you what I would put in the boys school lunches. Well I have a confession to make. I think that it is cheaper to give the boys school lunches at £9.75 each per week. I also am a great believer in the fact that they will get a well balanced meal and learn to try more food if they sit at a table with their classmates. Now it has to be said that I am very lucky that the boys are not picky eaters and they both love having school lunch and it helps that the lunches at their school are delicious.

 

One thing I have found over the last couple of years is that my boys leave school ravenous. so I have learned the importance of after school snacks to keep the hunger at bay until we have our family meal at 6pm. I asked my friends on twitter for some ideas of what they give their children for after school snacks and got some great suggestions:

• • Rachel at Tales from the village - carrot sticks, bread-sticks and humus
  • Liz at Violet Posy - Fruit, porridge or toast
  • Emily at Babyrambles - Bread sticks, crackers and occasionally a Jammie Dodger!
  • Vonnie from The Life Craft - Peanut butter and/or banana sandwiches
  • Deb (my SIL) - banana on brown bread toast
  • Helen - Fruit, cereal bars, school bars, yogs, toast, cheese cubes....
  • Jo (from Maxi's NCT Group) Apple and cheese is a good combo ... Or we do a snack plate of bits of ham, cheese, carrot or cucumber sticks and some crackers so they can make up their own idea. If it is cold we sometime do Heinz tomato soup or you could do a noodle plate ... Egg noodles tossed in a bit of soy and sesame oil with "veg noodles" - cucumber and carrot cut into strips with a veg peeler ... And for fun a set of kids chopsticks ...
  • Rachel - Brioches, yoghurt coated fruit flakes, sun bites, rice cakes, fruit..
  • Tasha from Wham Bam -  marmite sandwich or Philadelphia and peanut butter. And a cup of pink milk (nasty Nesquik stuff, sorry)
  • Ella from Notes from home - cheese straws, chocolate rice cakes, breadsticks, sandwiches or homemade cupcakes/cookies made with less sugar and salt than usual. Sometimes a packet of crisps or bisuits if I have to bribe them to go out somewhere!

On our list at the moment we have:

• • Nutella on brown bread
  • home made flapjacks
  • savoury scones
  • berries
  • yoghurt
  • smoothies
  • cereal bars
  • bear fruit yoyo's
  • home made popcorn
  • veg sticks
  • crackers and cheese
  • malt loaf
  • crumpets
  • muffins
  • scotch pancakes
  • cereal and dried fruit (mixed together in small bags)
  • Mini Jaffercakes (Mini's favourite thing in the whole wide world)
  • Cheese and grapes
  • Milk and cookies

The best bit of advice I have received on school snacks is not to ban chocolate, crisps or biscuits, just to downsize them.  By limiting the amount you have in the house you are not depriving your child, but you are helping them to moderating their intake and teaching them about healthy choices..

 

We were also sent some Cars 2 lunch boxes from Clintons back to school range over the summer.  Mini had a day out last week, which required a lunch box and he decided that he wanted to use the Mater box, which is a pretty unusual shape, but actually it is a great shape for taking drinks upright and took all his lunch with room to spare, plus the great thing was that no other cold had one the same, which meant that it was easy to identify. The lunch box had a pull out handle, which made it easy to carry too.

I would love to know what you give your children for after school snacks.

“There is no time to call an ambulance, just get in the car they will be waiting for you” “Leave me your keys I will lock up and meet you there” “No, there is no time to pack a bag, just go now”

This was the conversation we had with an out of hours GP when Maxi was 4 months old. This was one of the healthcare workers who worked to save his life. Save the children believe no child is born to die, I agree. Sign the petition.  Tweet using the #healthworkers hashtag, blog about it. Help spread the word  

 

The true measure of a nation’s standing ishow well it attends to its children – theirhealth and safety, their material security,their education and socialization, andtheir sense of being loved, valued, andincluded in the families and societies into which they are born.

I am sure by now most people will be aware of the BBC article and the UNICEF report which states that British children are at the bottom of a table showing well being in rich counties.  Sadly this didn't surprise me, but it does make for interesting, albeit sad reading.

I fear that it is a damning reflection on a lot of what I feel is wrong with society today and makes me realise that I am doing my best by trying to be there for my children.  To spend quality time with them and ensure that we have family games nights and that weekends are spent making memoires, rather than shopping, which seems to be a common occurrence.

I am not implying that we live an Enid Blyton lifestyle as that isn't true and I can be as materialistic as the next person, but it isn't a pretty trait.  What saddens me is I also see it in my children.  Toys have become a weekly thing for some children at their school and where as we try and make them for high days and holidays, the boys see all the adverts of TV  and want, want, want.  Which brings me to the point of advertising aimed at children, which I find horrifying.  When the boys were smaller I restricted their viewing to Cbeebies and Playhouse Disney (now Disney Junior) as both channels were advert free, but as they have got older, they change the channels themselves and what to watch specific programs and they like to watch the adverts, which are just a constant bombardment of toys.

But for me the biggest issue is that fact that it is hard in the UK to run a family on just one income.  This means that a lot of parents are forced to both work, which means someone else looking after their children.  Often children do not get to spend much time with their parents, let along quality time and people over compensate by giving their children toys and gadgets.    I never had my children to leave them with other people and I find it so disheartening that we are struggling to make this possible without me working.  The fact is that part time work is hard if not impossible to come by.  The thought of leaving my children in childcare whilst I went out to work is not only financial incompatible, but also leaves me in a cold sweat.  I love the fact that I can take them to the park after school, that we have dinner together every day as a family and that MadDad can have an hour with the boys before bed.  I make sure that I do all the housework, shopping and other stuff during the week, so that our weekends are sacred family time and I appreciate just how lucky I am to be able to do this and believe that this is something that other families should have the opporunity to do.

PS I have tried really hard not to be a Miss Judgeypants.  These are my opinions and I welcome other peoples opinions.