Healthy Red Velvet Chocolate Cake Recipe
Your kids will never know they’re eating vegetables!
Helen
Dress Your Age Mummy!
Mummy, I love you, goodness knows that I do. But be realistic. You are 44, not 24; some choices just aren’t you. The frilled bikinis, the all-in-one playsuits, the skorts (omg) – they are just not right. I know you were young, you say you were cool, but really, don’t go there, pleeeease? Don’t get me wrong, you do have style. But the things you desire look better on me. Frills, lace, feathers, they’re chic. But make sure they’re my size – I can carry them off. I love your clothes, I want them for me . I can’t wait till I fit in your wedding …
How to be Lucky: a Simple Technique
I wrote last week how Mummy won a ticket to Cybermummy. She is usually a firm believer in the theory that it is impossible to win anything in a lottery-style competition, having grappled regularly with the tests in Reader’s Digest as a child and won nothing. She was never selected from a random draw to appear on Jim’ll Fix It either. So began, at the age of 11, a lifetime of cynicism and can’tbebotheredness. So she was astounded by her luck in winning the golden ticket! Off she trotted to London, smug, but bemused by this unexpected good fortune. Well friends, you’ll …
3 Word Gallery
His Father’s Son I think I’ve mentioned Daddy’s love of stock car racing. He is desperate to race himself, but Mummy won’t let him for fear of what could happen. So he contents himself with dragging us to race meetings every now and then. I take a stack of books and beg for ice-cream, sweets, chips, airhorns, anything to create a diversion and get me through the day. The Bug takes an altogether more fanatical stance on the event, showing up with his picnic chair and settling in for the duration. Does the pink Disney princess chair bother him? Not …
A Gift for Father’s Day
Every year the Bug and I make something at school as a gift for Father’s Day. Usually colorful, sometimes edible, often unidentifiable, and always heartfelt. This year, in addition to the usual offerings, we gave Daddy a gift which, although inedible and unwearable, surpassed all expectations. We took him to watch Stock Car racing. In the rain. For the uninitiated, this is an event where beaten up cars compete in a series of races for the unenviable privilege of entering a final ‘demolition derby’ – a fight to the death for cars which sometimes only have 2 wheels to begin …
Networking: Mummy Meets the Real Bloggers
Blogging is pretty new to Mummy, but at a recent bloggers networking event she met a whole crew of local mummy bloggers in our area. She had heard of most of these ladies, but had no idea that they lived just round the corner. So when they invited her to join their gang on a night out she was thrilled. A social life is something she seems to crave, although why, when she has so many Rainbow Fairy books, Polly Pocket dolls, and Moshi Monster cards at home, is completely beyond me. She quietly anticipated a champagne-fuelled lunch, or a …
Destablilised: Riding a Bike Grown-Up Style
I did it! Six and a half years in, two and a half since my ‘bicycle birthday’ I finally wobbled my way to independence! There have been many slanging matches along the way, several threats to give my bike to the charity shop, and numerous months when my wheels lay quietly at the back of the garage, waiting for me to be ready. Well suddenly, this week, I was ready. Setbacks that would have previously seen me screaming with uncontrollable delusions of failure caused a mere shrug and a hop back into the saddle. Fruit pastilles magnified the motivation levels …
Trading Cards: Moshi MONSTER Meltdown!
Trading cards – what on earth are they all about? I have been begging M&D to let me get involved for some time now. I am desperate to log on to the computer game, but M&D say that whilst they are still paying for the Club Penguin membership there will be no new subscription-based online games. Finally, faced with a need to make me sleep more, Mummy invested in an incentive programme. Two weeks later I have the beginnings of a nice collection of cards. Twice so far I have had a complete temper meltdown. First I left my carefully …
Seasickness Remedies
My Daddy gets seasick. I know this now because we went on a ferry to Guernsey last week and he couldn’t manage anything beyond ‘aaargh that was a bad one’ for the whole trip. He has spent the first 3 days of our holiday panicking about the return journey, and I’m sure from his reaction that no-one has ever felt as bad as he did. At the time I was pretty nonchalant, but now I am concerned. He has developed a new-found obsession with a website called windfinder.com, which he studies intently from the first moment of awakening until just …
#PassitOn – I’m Grateful For…
Check out the other Gallery entries here. I pester a lot. I try not to, I try to be grateful for what I have, but there’s just so much delicious stuff out there that it’s really difficult to pretend I don’t want it. So when Mummy asked me to stop and think about what I am grateful for I had to mentally change tack. Mummy tried to get me started by telling me what matters to her, but that was too predictable for me: me and the Bug, Daddy, health, a nice house, etc. Actually, once I got going it …
Family-Friendly Travel: Should Airlines Segregate?
As the holiday season approaches, I thought it pertinent to raise the issue of air-travel with families – and those individuals who are not family-friendly. Whilst reading the Sunday papers last weekend Mummy had what can only be described as a coffee-snort moment. Apparently someone had written to the Sunday Times travel section complaining about the fact that families are allowed to share the same space as normal grown-ups. The author of the complaint had been compelled to sit next to a baby who not only failed to keep its arms and legs still, but who showed an unhealthy interest …
Not a Perfect Parent: the One Where Mums Lose the Plot
My Mummy is perfect. Most of the time. At least, I think she is. Which is why, when she’s cross with me – and after my frustration at the injustice of it all has dissipated – I write her little notes to say sorry. It works like magic. I get a hug, she says she’s sorry too, and if I really lay it on her I may even get some apology chocolate. Seriously, Mummy is a moody mare at times. She once (in a good mood) called herself ‘silly old Mummy’. She laughed when we agreed. I tried it again, to …
Mustachioed – The Gallery
This week Sticky Fingers has given us the challenge ‘Mustachioed’ for our photo blog posts. Not being brave enough to put one on myself (the moustache would probably look better than any of the individuals in my family given the lack of sleep that’s been going on around here), and not owning a dog, we decided to plagiarise an idea from Toy Story 3.
Rock Choir: Mummy Plays Wembley Arena!
Mummy belongs to Rock Choir, a no-audition, no-questions-asked singing (and a bit of dancing!) group. She joined after Christmas, thinking it would be a fun release from ‘being a Mum’, with maybe a couple of small local concerts occasionally. Fast-forward 4 months and she becomes one of a 7,500-strong group performing yesterday at Wembley Arena. Now I’ve had my moments in the spotlight, but that’s what I call Diva status! I’ve wanted to see Miley Cyrus in concert for many months now, but with M&D not splashing the cash for tickets, I was happy to settle for this as my …
Madeleine McCann: how fear has changed us
* Updated: There is a new aged photo of Madeleine McCann as she might look aged 9. Please take a look and keep Madeleine in your mind. This post was originally published on 12 May 2012, and was updated with this image on 26 April 2012. Yesterday was Madeleine’s 8th birthday. Mummy has pored over the McCann news articles for several days now, reliving the horror that another mother has experienced on a loop for the last 4 years. I am aware that something is upsetting her, though she would never let me in on the facts. I am also conscious of the …
Top tip for picky eaters – do more cooking!
I am not what you might call a picky eater, safe yes, but not picky. Fish fingers, pizza, sausage, tick. I do vegetables and fruit to the extent that Mummy feels reassured that her healthy cooking has not gone to waste, and I may even be coerced into trying something like beetroot – so long as it comes in the form of a ‘red-velvet’ cupcake (read ‘chocolate with a faint whiff of beetroot’). Apart from that I am about as predictable as a 6-year-old can be. Imagine my predicament when my younger brother arrives on the scene. Milk, baby-mush, the odd bit of soggy toast; …
Breathtaking Bluebells!
Not literally my backyard, but a place nearby that M&D take us every year on the offchance there may be bluebells. Some years we are disappointed and Bluebell Wood becomes Pocahontas Land owing to the wigwam-shaped stick houses that other children have thoughtfully built for our enjoyment. This year, as you can see, we got lucky!