My daughter has befriended a baby in the park and I feel like I am hovering at the top of an enormous slide, not sure whether to plunge ahead or tip toe back down the steps. The child could be anything between nine and 14 months, it is dressed in orange trousers and a blue-green …
Continue reading He, She, Or It? The Unspoken Child Gender Controversy
Casting my eye over my wardrobe in the mornings, sometimes I linger on a favourite dress or elegant skirt. Then my sense of reason takes over any sensibilities I may have about looking stylish and I pick-up and pull-on a trusty pair of black leggings. For a while I felt I had let myself go …
Continue reading Fashion Week Special: 6 Reasons Leggings Will Never Go Out Of Style
When your sleep is deprived, you struggle to be alone even to go to the loo and constant demands are being yelled at you, day and night, it can be hard to find time to practice anything like mindfulness. But amidst the chaos that is parenting small children, there may be moments that you can …
Continue reading 5 Secret Ways To Calm A Frazzled Mummy Mind – Don’t Let Them Pass You By
"Share Mummy?", my toddler asks pleadingly with her head on one side. "Please?" She is holding a plastic spoon smeared with semi-cemented Weetabix, thrusting it towards me as she eyes my bowl of muesli, a somewhat forced grimace plastered on her face, which she believes to be appealing. "What you actually are asking me to …
Continue reading That’s Mine! – Why NOT To Teach Your Child To Share
Have you ever noticed a single shoe lying in the gutter? Just one. An incomplete pair. Lost in every sense of the word. Does it ever give you cause to wonder - who did that odd shoe belong to? How did they lose it? How did they walk away without realising they had left it …
"Where shall we go to eat?", was once a question that bounced from my watering lips with pleasure, buoyed by anticipation of a relaxed and enjoyable experience that would leave me feeling satisfied. Now it is an issue that fills my empty belly with dread and casts a shadow over any, thus far cheery, social …
Nursery Whines is taking a break this week. But we have dug out last summer's anthem from the archives. Many thanks to Damon Albarn. This is the tune we live our lives to most of the time to be honest. Here is my reinterpretation of Parklife, through the eyes of a parent. Well, life is …
As Cliff Richard famously crooned, "Everybody has a summer holiday." But whether we are, "Doin' thing we always wanted to", or things we feel we have to do to fill the weeks and weeks of having children at home all day, is highly debatable. And it's not just, "a week or two", as Sir Cliff …
As a celebrity journalist I have attended my share of parties. Over the years you learn who puts on the best shindig and fills the best goody bag, and how to ensure you have a ball and bag a scoop without turning into a pumpkin when you have work the next day. But children's birthday …
Continue reading Top 5 Tips For Surviving Children’s Parties
My daughter's right leg is currently in plaster. Before the age of two she has suffered a fractured metatarsal, damage to a bone in her foot. It is a common injury in professional footballers and dancers. She incurred her damage jumping off the bed. "Mummy called the doctor and the doctor and the doctor said, …
Continue reading Helicopter Parenting – How Low Should You Go?
