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By Little Mummy, March 16, 2010 12:15 am

Some people say that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, I reckon they are the mad ones.

This is an interview with myself.

If you could live with only one cd for the rest of your life what would it be?

Definitely my Ultimate Dirty Dancing, it has every piece of music from the film in chronological order. I love it.

What are you most proud of?

My family and my marriage. Most of us appreciate how difficult it is to be a mum, but many overlook how difficult it is to be in a successful marriage.

What do you regret?

I regret worrying over the things that don’t matter, I’ve spent too much life worrying.

What worries you now?

Failure.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Graduating from university, I’ve always wanted to go, always wanted to get a degree so that’s what I’m going to do.

Where do you want to go on holiday next?

I want to go to Switzerland for a week of ski-ing. I have this romantic idea of ski-ing in beautiful surroundings with evenings spent in a wooden chalet with a ‘real’ fire and fondue for supper.

What would you like for next Mother’s Day?

A lie in, a cuddle, breakfast in bed, and walk on the beach followed by fish and chips

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By Little Mummy, March 14, 2010 11:27 pm

Little Croc’s Purse by Lizzie Finlay

One hot day, Little Croc finds a lost purse.

“Finders keepers! tease his friends, imagining a treat of lemonade and a lovely cool swim.

But Little Croc is determined to find the purse’s owner…

Will his honesty be rewarded? Or will he be tempted to spend the money inside?

Littlemummy: A cute story promoting the ’spending, sharing, saving’ ethos. Good for parent’s trying to teach kid’s about pocket money.

Erin: “I liked the purse and the money. I like money because you can spend it, and save it for riding horses”

Little Croc’s Purse £3.99 on Amazon

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

This book is by the creators of The Gruffalo. I love children’s books that rhyme and flow, makes reading them so much less laborious and they seem to hold the children’s attention longer.

Littlemummy: I’m going to stick my neck out and say this is even better than The Gruffalo (which was excellent)

Erin: It’s amazing but the dragon is a bit scary!

Room on the Broom £2.98 on Amazon

Katie Morag and the Grand Concert by Mairi Hedderwick

Every year on the Isle of Struay there is a Gran Concert, where the islanders play fiddles, recite poetry, and sing and dance for their friends and neighbours. Katie Morag can’t wait to sing her special song on stage – but just as the curtain rises, disaster strikes…

Littlemummy – I liked this one as it is set on a Scottish island and features the song ‘You cannae shove your granny off a bus’. The illustrations are also really interesting and quite elaborate with a map of the island etc..

Erin – “Well, I didn’t like the croaky voice but I liked the baby”

Katie Morag and the Grand Concert £5.39 on Amazon

Dog Loves Books by Louise Yates

Dog loves books about dinosaurs, and Dog loves books about aliens: in fact Dog loves all books! Dog has his very own bookshop, although he doesn’t have many customers. But that’s all right, because when Dog is surrounded by books, he is never short of friends or fun.

And when someone does come into the shop, Dog knows just which books to recommend…

Littlemummy: This book has a nice story but it’s not very in depth and only takes about two minutes to read.

Erin: “I liked the books but not the dinosaurs”

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By Little Mummy, March 11, 2010 10:48 pm

I pinched this one from babyrambles…

When I first started my blog it was very fact based however over the years it has become more personal, especially after I decided to blog about my miscarriages last year, however there are many things I still won’t blog about.

* I don’t blog about friends or family explicitly, ie I won’t slag anyone off or reveal their identities in any way. I may mention a family member but only if it’s really necessary to whatever I’m blogging about.

* I don’t post any photos of family (other than Erin, myself and husband) or friends.

* I won’t post anything that may cause Erin to be embarassed when she’s older.

* I don’t write anything I wouldn’t like a stranger reading.

* I don’t post about other kids I know, for fear that there mum might actually find my blog and kill me

* If I’m writing about something personal I always get a second opinion from my husband. He was actually the one that encouraged me to write about the miscarriages last year and he was right so I trust his opinion.

* I won’t write anything that I wouldn’t like my Nan reading (she reads this from time to time), so erm, extra curricular activities are off the menu

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By Little Mummy, March 10, 2010 11:24 pm

In The News

Glasgow City Council have paid £95,000 for a logo for the Commonwealth Games made up of the primary colours (plus green), the letter G and a few circles, hardly value is it. I’m a big fan of the Olympics and these other large sporting events and don’t usually begrudge the funding at all. I do like a bit of value for money though and this overly simplistic rip off logo (apparently the logo is very similar to the logo of some arts council, shown on left of pic). I’d rather have seen the ‘project’ farmed out to the schools and have the kids come up with something, and give them the ninety-five grand.

Source: The Scotsman

Closer To Home

To the prat that overtook me at high speed, next to a central reservation, metres before a red light which you ploughed through whilst displaying ‘L’ plates thanks for nearly killing me you loser. I hope you got to wherever you were going in such a rush, I can’t imagine you’ll be driving for too much longer.

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By Little Mummy, March 10, 2010 12:15 am

Write Ideas Down Straight Away

I get a lot of ideas last thing at night and first thing in the morning, regardless of when you get your ideas ensure you write them down or you risk losing them forever.

Write Posts at Naptime

This has always worked for me as it coincides with my best writing time, other alternatives include getting up earlier to blog or as a lot of parent bloggers do, go to bed later (eek!)

Finish Posts Before Reading Other Blogs

Don’t get suckered into reading your 100 blog strong RSS feed until you’ve finished your own posts. This is procrastination blog-stylee.

Write Posts in Advance

A classic tip that works especially well for mums as we don’t know when the next bout of teething will keep us from our second biggest passion in life is to write posts in advance and either schedule them to be published at a specific time using the date stamp in wordpress or publish them manually on the right day.

Don’t Get OSCD – Obesssive Stat Checking Disorder

This is a serious time suck and if you don’t want your blog to become sad and neglicted don’t even go there. Seriously. Beware. Steer clear of over analysing unique visitors and pageviews, spend your time writing good content instead.

Choose Only One or Two Social Media Sites

Choose one or two and focus all your time there, I enjoy twitter and facebook, for you it may be MySpace and del.ici.ous. The old adage rings true it’s quality not quantity that counts when it comes to these sites.

Mum Blogger E-Course

You knoew there was a plug coming Sign up for my free mum blogger e-course. The course is delivered by email giving you one lesson and tasks to work on each week keeping your blog on track and growing.

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By Little Mummy, March 8, 2010 11:23 pm

I went to see Alice in Wonderland on Saturday. So many people have asked me about it on twitter that I thought I’d do a quick review.

The Plot

Well obviously it follows the book which I’ve only read half of. In short (very short)Alice falls down a rabbit hole and discovers an underworld of strange characters. Alice needs to defeat the Jabberwocky to reinstate the White Queen as ruler of Underworld.

The Effects

The effects were amazing, I can no longer tell what is real and what is animated. The combination of computer graphics and 3D create a unique experience that is no longer akin to watching a film, it’s an experience. To me it felt the story was truly alive, like my imagination was playing out in front of my eyes.

The Cast

Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter and does a great job, some of the characteristics reminded me a bit of his take on Willy Wonka but his character in this film was far more exaggerated.

Helena Bonham Carter who I usually don’t rate stole the show for me, I thought she was the most believable as a storybook character.

Alice is played by Mia somebody or other, I didn’t think she was that remarkable, kind of adequate or maybe she was just up against it with the amazing supporting cast. I’d say the same for Anne Hathaway who plays the White Queen.

I very much enjoyed Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and dum, Alan Rickman as Absolem the caterpillar and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, they all definitely do us brits proud. My mum liked Barbara Windsor as the Dormouse.

What’s it Like

Eccentric, a little dark as you’d expect from a Tim Burton film, well executed. In my opinion it’s too scary for younger children (under 7), especially in 3D.

What I Thought

I was blown away by the effects but the story was a little fantastical for me. I don’t think it could have been done much better though.

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By Little Mummy, March 7, 2010 10:20 am

On Sunday after not ski-ing for ten years we ventured back to the dry ski slope where we learnt to ski as teenagers (and also where Alex proposed to me eleven years ago!).

We’ve long harboured a desire to go on a ski holiday and this was the first step towards that.

We’re fortunate that we live ten minutes away from an excellent slope that costs around £9 an hour including ski hire (much better than the eighty quid a lesson someone tweeted about).

The morning was eventful in that I managed to fall off the chairlift twice, although Alex has admitted to pushing me once. *Twice* I found myself flailing around on my back like a beatle as chairs skimmed my head and skiers avoided me in slalom fashion.

I *cough* also managed to ski into the back of a snowboarder who had fallen into my path, I snow ploughed for dear life but I hurtled into the back of him impaling him on my skis (oops) I apologised but neither him nor his instructor acknowledged my presence (rude). I spent the rest of time huffing about ‘newbies’ being on the main slope and how I have a new found dislike for the fancy modern snowboarder types pffft.

Anyhoo, here’s a wee video of me demonstrating my, erm, skills…

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By Little Mummy, March 4, 2010 11:45 pm

This is a guest post for ‘Guest Post Day’ by Babyrambles, a blog I didn’t read before guest post day but one that has found it’s way into my google reader already!

I’ve decided to travel 400 miles to sit at Erica’s desk. And some desk it is too. You should see this study I’m sitting in, it’s bigger than my living room at home. Erica came up with this brilliant idea of Guest Post Swap Day. But I’m not content with just swapping posts on each other’s blogs, I actually wanted to see what it would be like to be Erica. So I’m in her house. I’m lucky to be here, I almost didn’t get through the security on her gates. Oh and look, the butler’s just brought me some coffee. This Little Mummy lifestyle is a nice one.

How often do you put yourself in someone else’s shoes? I feel like I’m doing it today. It’s quite difficult because I don’t know Erica very well. That first paragraph was a bit of fiction by the way. I don’t think it does any harm to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, no matter how well you know them.

There’s an old saying, “Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” I like that saying (and it applies to women too funnily enough). Billy Connolly added, “After that, who cares? He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes.” I like that as well.

My sister put herself in my shoes this week. She got married on Wednesday but I wasn’t at her wedding. I was so sad to miss it. Her wedding was in South Africa. We thought long and hard about going, but taking three little ones on a journey like that would have been too much for us. Phoning my sister and telling her we wouldn’t be going to her wedding was one of the hardest things I’ve done. She doesn’t have children and probably doesn’t appreciate what hard work they can be.

I worried my sister would be offended and hold a grudge against me. Missing her wedding was a tough and difficult decision to make. She was disappointed, but after some thought she understood. I spoke to her on her wedding day, she sounded so happy and I felt sad not to be sharing that with her. But she told me again that she understood why we couldn’t have gone. And that made me feel so much better. Our lifestyles are very different, but she was able to empathise with me. I appreciate that. It’s not a skill everyone has.

So today I’m in Erica’s shoes. I hope I’ve managed to do a reasonable job of filling them. And if I haven’t… well Erica will be back very shortly! Pretending to be Erica has made me think a bit differently. I’ve written a post here which I don’t think I’d have written for my own blog. I don’t know why, but I think I’ve enjoyed being a bit different for a day.

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By Little Mummy, March 2, 2010 11:05 am

The first video below is just a wee bit of Guest Post Day info, please excuse my puffy eyes, I’ve not been too well!

and here’s the ‘live’ draw – see, no cheating

1. Craig McGill and Nene

2. Laura ‘Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy @LauraAWNTYM and Sharon

3. Barb ‘diabetic snacker’ and Young Mummy @YoungMummyUk

4. Sandy Calico and Sam ‘mumazing’ @samthewlis

5. Diney ‘Older Mums Are Fun’ and Manda ‘Flying Start Mag’

6. Claire ‘20 Something Mum’ and Lady Who Lunches @theladylunches

7. Mummy Limited @mummylimited and Linda ‘You’ve Got Your Hands Full’ @LindaSJones

8. Rosie Scribble @RosieScribble and Englishmum @englishmum

9. New Mummy @caroljs and Bumbling @BumblingTweets

10. Iain Gilmour @iaingilmour and T-J Hughes

11. Vegemitevix @vegemitevix and Karin ‘Cafebebe’ @cafebebe

12. Victoria ‘It’s a Small World After All‘ and Vic ‘Glowstars’

13. Nickie ‘Typecast’ @Nickie72 and Lisa ‘Deeply Flawed But Trying’ @slummymummy1

14. MrsW ‘Clinically Fed Up’ and Bare Naked Mummy

15. Antonia ‘Family Friendly Working’ and Babies Who Brunch

16. Felyhooton and American Mom in England @silentbeauty

17. Meandering Mother and Kim ‘Four Teens’

18. My Baby Adventure and Becky Willoughby

19. Jo Beaufoix and Magic Mummy ‘Frugal Family’

20. New Day New Lesson and Readily a Parent

21. Prendsletemps and Slummy Single Mummy

22. Sleep is for the weak and Angels and Urchins

23. Dulwich Divorcee @dulwichdivorcee and Ella ‘Most Least’

24. The MadHouse @Mum_TheMadHouse and A Place Of My Own

25. If I Could Escape @ificouldescape and Mari’s World

26. Brighton Mum – Teenage Angst and Sticky Fingers

27. Mummy Do That @cartside and Tattie Tats

28. Insomniac Mummy @insomniacmummy and Child Organics

29. Diary of a First Child and Ordinality

30 Fired4U and Sarahlscott ‘The Fifth Street Palace’

31. LaptopMums and Foodie Mummy

32. The Alice and Evie George

33. Family Affairs and Notes From Lapland

34. Mediocre Mum @mediocre_mum and The Thought Bubble @bubbleboo

35. A Mother’s Ramblings and Baby Budgeting

36. Very Bored in Catalunya and Geriatric Mummy

37. And Then All I Thought About Was You and Super Single Mummy