Leaving London and downshifting to become a full-time parent and rural homemaker
I heard a couple of really sad and scary tales recently of young children (friends’ of friends) having to have rotten milk teeth removed (one child was having to have twenty removed the other needed five taking out). I couldn’t believe it and wondered whether it was parental ignorance rather than negligence to blame.
Loads of [...]
Even as a grown-up prior to having school aged children I couldn’t help but think of September as a new beginning. I guess after so many many years in education where we had a lonnnnng vacation and then a fresh new start with new teachers, new subjects, new kit, new friends etc. it is inevitable [...]
I’m going to come out and say it here and say it proudly that I’m actively not one of those mums who sign the kids up for swimming, ballet, soccer, music lessons, horseriding, Brownies/Scouts etc. Its partly because I am a bit lazy and not that good at committing myself to things but mainly its [...]
Our little son was very good at communicating his need to watch tv before he could even speak. As 15 month olds they communicated with us via sign language as we had taught them from age seven months basic signs for milk, various animals, food, ‘more’, ‘help’. We made up easy signs when required [...]
This is obviously one of every parent’s worst living-nightmares. I can make myself cry just by thinking about this happening.
A fortnight ago I went to meet my ninety four year old Grandma off the train from Weymouth in Bristol Temple Meads train station which is pretty big with thirteen platforms. Prior to our previous rendez-vous [...]
When we were deciding whether or not to have another baby after the twins turned 3 I scoured the internet for information to help us make this decision. Should we or shouldn’t we? Was it an insane thing to do or would it complete the family. Would it bankrupt us? Would we live in chaos [...]
Out of respect for the emotions of one of my very lovely friends I’m not going to spend a lot of my time writing about our latest pregnancy but wanted to jot down my thoughts on how this pregnancy will be as thrifty as possible (in sharp comparison to when we were expecting the twins [...]
I was a tad taken aback by this comment I received today having suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks just one month ago:
Do you think there is a conflict between your desire to be green, and to have more children?
e.g. see : http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2036598,00.html
David.
BUT then I read the article and was dumbfounded to [...]
A week ago today I was looking forward to telling the children that we were expecting a new baby brother or sister for them in early September. We hadn’t told many people about the pregnancy as I was keen to find out that it wasn’t twins again before sharing the joyous news. We’d held off [...]
As I walked in to the pre-school classroom today I was less than overjoyed to be greeted by my kids waving A3 sheets and screaming in double unison ‘We’ve stuck LOADS of pictures of all the THINGS we NEED Santa to bring for us!!’ and so they had – hundreds of photos of toys cut [...]