Three Reasons You Should NEVER Take a Toddler to Choose Their Own Birthday Present

Let’s get this out of the way first.  I know I’m a monster.  If I was any sort of mother, I would have arranged for someone else (in an ideal world, my doting husband and babyfather, for example, if such a person existed, we are talking about a hypothetical IDEAL world here, not the one…

First Cinema Trip: “No More Mummy”

I am not a keen cinema-goer.  The last time I attended any sort of cinema was on a school trip around eighteen months ago, and the time before that I cannot even remember, but I suspect that it was to see Marley and Me, a tale of schmaltz starring an improbably youthful-looking Jennifer Aniston and…

Diary of a Bedtime

“You were sleeping through by his age!” My mother’s words, uttered at regular intervals since my son turned three months old, are reaching a fever pitch. My son is almost three.  He is still not “sleeping through.” OK, that is a slight lie.  He has slept through, at least once, but to do so on…

Bath, Book, Bed? I Should Be So Lucky

The evening routine is not something I have ever really got the hang of.  I am not a routine person.  Mornings are for rushing out of the door barely dressed and with a toddler still mewling at the outrage of being torn from the comforting catatonic vigil of back to back Paw Patrol and Fireman…

Five Things Toddlers Are Obsessed With

OK, so this post should really be titled, “Five things MY toddler is obsessed with,” as I have no other benchmark from which to make my ridiculous generalisations, but here goes. Sticks Really we are talking branches here.  Some would say entire trees.  Check this bad boy out. This is not a new phenomenon. Yes,…

The Terrible Twos: This is Normal, Right?

My mother is convinced that Piglet is afflicted with the developmental curse generally known as the Terrible Twos. I am going to assume that in ordinary parlance this means that toddlers are expected to have a lot of tantrums.  Now tantrums I can handle.  I think I understand them.  I definitely read some stuff on…

Caravan Holidays: Bucolic Idyll or Hell on Earth?

During my childhood and teenage years, I went on more than my fair share of caravan holidays. There was a time in the mid-90s when I probably could have named every Haven holiday park in the country.  And believe me there were a lot of them.

The Twenty Stages of Getting a Toddler to Sleep

When you are 20 months old and a tiny tyrant, there comes a point in every day, sometime after the closing bars of the CBeebies Goodnight song, when the time has quite literally come to say goodnight, to say sleep tight until the morning light. That time rarely comes until at least an hour and…

The Insane Toddler Interest in Large Vehicles: Part 1

Today, finally, following two busy Saturdays spent in London, what seems like endless weeks of work and almost a week of illness (mine.  I am still praying that Piglet doesn’t receive the gift of my pestilence) I finally spent some time with Piglet. Mummy and Piglet time. So, what did we do with this precious…

Piglet Takes First Steps. Mummy Misses It.

As you may have guessed from the title, today was the momentous day that Piglet started walking. I am henceforth to be found training for the one hundred metre sprint at the 2016 Olympics. After all, I am going to be running after him from now on and he is FAST.  Very fast, for somebody…