Just Call Me Bob... Bob The Builder...

Apparently us Mum's do the jobs of 23 professionals according to the Express and this is one newspaper article I don't disagree with. I would say I did at least 5 before breakfast this morning. I remember blogging before about all the different roles we take on as Mother's.

It's true though isn't it, us full time Mother's work a 12 hour day everyday. That's 7am to 7pm of keeping the children happy and entertained and completing our never ending lists.

I used to feel ashamed when asked what do I do for a living and I responded that I'm a stay at home Mother , I didn't want them to think that meant I was a lazy person who stayed at home. Before I became a Mother I would of shrugged it off as a easy job , after all the only job you have is to look after child and home. How wrong I was, I would say I'm just as tired running around after a toddler as I would be chasing up a client. It may be poor pay and the jobs may be endless but the rewards are great.

A survey said that 'Six in 10 of those surveyed wished their partner would help out more.' Do you wish yours helped out more with the everyday tasks? I count my lucky charms that I have a rather helpful partner when it comes to the necessities around the house. He's totally useless at DIY but when I need him he's there , I've done my knee in recently and have not been able to put much weight on it and he's been a star with all the tidying/looking after Oli he's been doing.


We are cooks , cleaners , builders , entertainers , gardeners , decorators , hairdressers , first aiders and teachers (Just a shame we don't get all the wages for all of it!)

The article didn't mention all the jobs of the 23 professionals.. I've came up with a few of what they could be myself but what do you think the others could be?

Greenbelt 2010

You may of guessed from my tweets from the last week that I've not been at home around the hours of 7pm to 10am and then the other 15 hours I've spent sleeping/doing the housework. You see I crazily volunteered to be a night steward at a festival that happens in the near by town of Cheltenham called Greenbelt.

I've been attending/working at greenbelt since I was 14 but have not been the last couple of years because of pregnancy/Oli. Was fantastic to see its not changed one bit , just got bigger and better if anything! It's one of those little goldmine festivals , not huge & massively popular like reading or new wine but huge & popular in its own way. The headliners are always something to talk about like last year they had Athlete and the weekend just gone we had Beverley Knight.







Yes it's a festival with a Christian tradition but don't let that put you off. It is for anyone and everyone no matter what your faith , sexuality or beliefs are. Just by looking at the literature and talks lineups you cant see there is something for everyone.

I was a tad fearful to how I would survive working through the nights and then coming home in the day to spend the weekend with my boys. But I managed it fairly well, shared nap time with Oli and then spent the rest of the day doing the usual and then back on to site in the evenings. It was a comfort come 8am after a night of stewarding that I got to go home to my bed and shower but I have promised the rest of my team that I will rough it next year and actually camp on site.





The bonus to working such stray hours was the fantastic sunset/rise I got to witness each evening & morning. I managed to get a few shots on my digital cam but for some rather awesome professional shots head over to Gloucestershire photographer Jonathon Watkins (PhotoGlow Photography)















So that's how I spent my weekend! Daddy & Son had lots of fun together minus Mummy , I did have to giggle when Jon came to pick me up one morning and Oli was wearing a PJ top & odd socks.. Men huh!

Hope you guys had a lovely bank holiday weekend?

Nutella At Legoland

Whilst growing up I used to have Nutella for breakfast most mornings and even when I grew up and moved out I remember having jars of it in the cupboard , there were many mornings where me and my housemates were found spoon feeding ourselves straight out of the jar! (It's on every students must do list!) So to me it feels normal to offer it to Oliver as a everyday spread for his breakfast in the mornings.

I see nutella as a family friendly brand , And I'm guessing it can be found on most of your breakfast tables too?! When I got invited along with some other Mummy Bloggers to a Nutella event at Legoland I went along to find exactly how family friendly Nutella really is.



Photo Credit : Yuri @Urbanvox


We were greeted with a wonderful breakfast spread which of course involved lots of Nutella. This was no ordinary breakfast though , we had some lovely company in the form of Ferrero UK's Marketing Director, Mauro de Felip , Psychologist Karen Pine , Nutritionist Sian Porter and Chef Alan Coxon.

We discussed in detail how much breakfast plays a big role in day to day meals and how nutritional certain breakfasts are.


Some of the things I learnt...

• Per serving Nutella has less sugar then jam.
• Children have a stomach the size of their clenched fist
• Because Nutella is packed full of Hazelnuts it realeases energy slowly. It is a low GI food.
  
• A parent will have to give a new food 10 to 15 times before it's accepted (So I wont be giving up on trying to get Oli to eat cabbage just yet!)
• Children eat food by example (So I wont be giving up on trying to get Jon to eat cabbage just yet either!)
• Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day! I know I already knew this but it reminded me that it was something I need to get across to Oli now and in years to come.
• There is no need to use butter when spreading Nutella on your toast.
• Nutella contains no artificial colours , preservatives or hydrogenated fat.
• Alax Coxon is the King of food knowledge , check out his twitter timeline to be entertained.
  

For different views on the breakfast discussion and Nutella as a healthy option you can pop over to any of the following blogs : Amy at Cooking , Cakes & Children , Liz at Violet Posy , Yuri at Urbanvox , Lulu at Family Affairs , Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings , Mary at Mary Poppins , Claire at Being A Mummy , Kat at Diary Of A (Not So) Single Mum , Vic at Glowstars , Emily at More Then Just A Mother and Kelly at A Place Of My Own.


For all that time I was eating Nutella I was convinced that it was chocolate spread. How wrong I was! The cocoa content for it is around 7% which is barely anything if you compare it to other spreads. The two hazelnuts which are included in every 15g makes Nutella a hazelnut spread , and all that time I just thoughts the nuts were on it to make it look pretty!

For me this breakfast event only made me more confident in my choice to give Nutella as a breakfast spread to Oli , I see it as part of a essential balance diet which both him & me can benefit from. I see it being a part of our breakfast table for years to come.


Head over to the Wake Up To Nutella website where you can try out one of many Nutella recipes listed.





BIG Thank Yous to Scott , Tim & The rest of the team at Cohn & Wolfe who are a fantastic PR company to work with, The lovely childminders who were on hand to look after the kid whilst we had breakfast and Legoland for letting us come & play.

AXA Respect On The Road

I am a very nervous passenger when it comes to being in the car with someone else driving but I cant really be blamed when I think of all the friends that I have lost have all been lost to tragic road accidents , and all at such young ages.

This is why I'm more then happy to back a campaign which AXA have created called 'Respect On The Road'. It's no secret that a lot of drivers out there suffer from road rage and sometimes this road rage can be the cause of some of the accidents that happen out there. AXA have created this campaign to try and bring courtesy and manners back to the roads. Why should we forget our manners the moment we get in the car when we should be taking them everywhere with us.

They've created a video which is acted out by 5 year olds who are acting out driving behavior copied from there parents.

I have to remind Jon often that Oli is in the back of the car and even though he cant speak yet, he's still picking up on any words or actions he may use. Kids do pick up things easily so we have to be careful with our behaviors especially in the car , after all these are the children of the future and it wont be long before they have there own cars on the road.

AXA have also hit the streets of London in a black taxi and have grabbed the opinions of the public in a series of videos called Cab Cam.

They've also set up a facebook fan page called I Respect The Road which I've already popped over to 'like' and to check it out. They have all the 'Cab Cam' videos posted and ready to watch.

So next time you're out and about on the road how about some respect?

This was a Sponsored Post

The Positive Side To Mummy Blogging

Blogging to me is a fun outlet , the perfect way to express myself and get those everyday issues off my chest and no matter what anyone says no one will take that away from me and if that means simply cutting out any negativity in the form of a block button so be it. I've experienced enough bullying to last a lifetime. So in the light of all all this recent 'negativity' I just wanted to share the positives and shine the light on all that is good about parent blogging.

We are friends with something in common - we all have children. This is why most of us blog hence the tittle parent blogger. We all have friendships outside twitter/blogging but then we all have this major friendship going on via our keyboards. I know I'm not the only one who shares more with her blogging friends then some of those real life friends. Yes there will be little spats, it's unavoidable! It happens in the real world so of course its going to happen in the cyberworld. Instead of taking sides lets help each other work out what the problem is.

We can have fun especially via the fun bloggy events that are often put on for us such as Millets Farm , The nutella event at legoland and the first toylogists meet-up. I get excited every time a PR offers to send me on a day out/sponsored trip because not only does it mean I get to have fun it means I get to actually meet the people behind all those fantastic blogs I read. If you read tweets/posts about bloggers attending such things then please please don't get jealous or upset , your time will come - trust me!

We can do good and a example of this is #blogadesh - Josie , Eva & Sian are flying out in 8 days to Bangladesh all of which and why is explained in there recent blog posts. And how about the bloggers for Haiti that went on early this year - So far amongst us we've raised £4,356.50 (you can still donate!) we did this as a team and by working together , we blogged and tweeted in our hundreds. Surely this makes blogging alone worth while?

Opportunities .. gosh I don't even like writing (let that be our little secret!) and yet I've had opportunities such as guest posting on some amazing blogs/websites. I'm even going to be part of a new blogging community/forum for babybornfree which has all come from just pouring words into this little corner of cyberspace. Think about the opportunities blogging has given you and what the future will bring opportunity wise.

We are supportive of each other. We share good/bad news and we receive appropriate support in the form of a few comforting words. I know when I have a problem/issue the first place I turn to is either twitter/to blog. This doesn't make me sad , I just know where to go for the right support. We read each other's posts , we comment and we discuss them , it cant get more supportive then that. We help each other through hard times , There's times where I'm not sure my sanity would still be intact today if it wasn't for you guys.

Freebies/Money is something some of us do get along side our usual blogging. I wasn't sure whether to use this as a example of positives because this isn't what blogging is about and I know this is what some of the negativity has been about. The freebies are not exactly freebies , they are from a partnership we enter into with a PR and in exchange for a item they get a honest review and some advertising for it via our blogs. Both the PR & us get something out of that. In terms of money this is mostly from sponsored posts , this is a post a blogger writes in which he/she gets paid for it. Most of us bloggers are in fact stay at home mums living off one income and I can tell you from personal experience that this is a struggle so if we do get offered the odd £50 here and there for some writing then of course we're going to say yes. If reviews/sponsored posts are something you're interested in then don't sit there quietly to yourself wishing you could do that , ask the blogger where you read these kind of things how they got into it.

We're getting noticed! I cant be the only one that was excited to read about the rise and rise of the 'mummy bloggers' over on the BBC website this morning. It was like I had won sports day all over again , I was beaming with pride! That's us that the BBC are talking about , our community.





Surely all this is something to be proud of?



And with regards to the negatives? To me there isn't any.. These positives are way to good to even consider there being any negative sides to it. If you do find it getting you down or getting too much then there's always the power off button.

Quality Or Quantity

How often do you blog?

Do you do it daily or are you like me and make it a 'if & when' task. It was only this morning I looked at my blog to see when I last posted which was Tuesday. So not that bad.. only a couple of days ago. I then felt slightly naughty for not doing one on Wednesday or even having one scheduled to post for yesterday when I wasn't around.

I shouldn't feel naughty though as it is my blog and I admit to having the 'I will will write whatever I want , whenever I want' attitude, I think this is a great one to adopt. I'm not a writer with deadlines who has to write like a expert, my blog posts are often full of grammar/spelling mistakes (I bet even this one if full of them!) which makes me think about the quality over the quantity when it comes to blogging. Isn't it better to have a post on your blog which you're happy about and is a interesting read for both you and the reader, not something which was put together in a few minutes just for the sake of blogging everyday. But then does that make me a bad blogger for not having something to blog about everyday?





I do have draft posts wrote up , random post ideas that just come to me and I note them down and write about it. I could use those on days I suppose where I'm not sure what to publish on my blog that day but then timing just doesn't seem right for them to be posted on that day. Does that make sense? I would rather leave my blog empty for one day and have 0 traffic then put something out there purely for the basis of daily blogging.

Blogging for me is a hobby , I have shared many time that the reason I started it was as a diary to keep track of all those firsts. I found it enjoyable to read other mother's blogs about children and then that's when people started to read mine. I eventually found British Mummy Bloggers and then realised I was a Mummy Blogger , I hadn't signed myself up to some exclusive club by becoming a Mummy blogger (though it helps if you are a Mother with a child!) it was just something I fell into. I fit it around me -I do try to do the full lump of it when Oli naps which means I usually have a post out about midday. The same goes with twitter , I'm often found yapping away around midday for coffee chat , the gossip and the blog posts which get promoted (who needs google reader when you have twitter?!) .

What do you think.. do you think quality should come before quantity or do you think it should be the other way round?

Homebirths

I read a article in the Guardian yesterday which was about a survey claims over home birth being more of a risk then a hospital birth. Apparently a home birth carries three times the risk that the baby will die then if you were to have the baby in hospital. I do not believe this to be true , I believe that both have just the same risks. Which the Royal College of Midwives has confirmed.

It got me thinking about my own thoughts on home birth. I never really knew my options when I was pregnant with Oli , I think even with the choice of a home birth I would of still gone to hospital through those first labour fears and because I just didn't know what to expect , I always assumed something like giving birth to a child should be handled in a hospital around medical equipment/doctors.

After giving birth it was only then I started to find out more about different birth options and actually hear real life stories about mothers giving birth in the comfort of there own home and surrounded by there family. Luschka's homebirth story bought tears of joy and happiness to me, It sounded just simply beautiful the way she had total control and power over what was happening. Reading about Amy's preparation for her planned home birth got me excited and made me think of home birth as a safe option to choose. She even shared what she got in her homebirth bag.

I've decided that I want a home birth with the next one (when the time is right!) for many different reasons. I wouldn't fault at all the treatment I was given when I gave birth to Oli in hospital. The midwife was there with me from the moment I arrived to the moment I gave birth, this is one reason why I think a home birth may be for me next time - I had a straightforward simple & quick (don't hate me!) labour which was done with one woman in the room.





It went downhill after I had given birth and was put down on the ward. I had no support with me not being able to breastfeed and even though I was in shock , they kicked Jon out. This still upsets me to this day. He should of spent that first night with his son like I did. I didn't want to be away from him. I wasn't allowed to discharge myself because of the set hours you have after given birth and the fact there wasn't a pediatrician handy to do some checks.
That was a horrible experience and like I said still upsets me today , I felt alone in a strange place once everyone had left me. I don't like overnight stays in hospital so why do it if I have other choices available to me.

I will look into my options come the next birth and I will be the one in control , after all it is my body and I am the one giving birth.