December 2021

Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.

My children bring me utmost joy. But do I enjoy my children?  To calculate how many minutes a day I enjoy being a mum, I’ve used my Joy-ometer, or JoyMometer, if I may. What’s your reading? As with your temperature, your score on the parental joy scale obviously depends on what time of day the reading is taken. Kissing their sleeping brows just before you go to bed = 10/10 on the JoyMometer. Holding all three children at arm’s length as they compete to stamp in the poo the baby has just curled out on the carpet = -10/10. Joy comes and goes unbidden and may be fleeting or complete, but for the sake of the experiment, I broke down my day into sections. The reading surprised me. It seems I enjoy my kids for 9 hours of the day, while I un-enjoy them for 9 hours (I exclude my 6 hours’ so-called sleep).  It’s a draw! So why do I feel like I’m struggling most of the time?  I was generous with the statistics. Anything above 5/10 I included as joy, but pure joy is felt rarely, and not for very long. In my typical day on the JoyMometer, I count three incidences of pure joy, lasting five minutes max each. Tellingly, each time it peaks is after an extended period of absence from the child(ren). Looking at it another way, if I took my children just at those three times a day, like a dose of medicine, I’d be as joyous as spring itself.
Joy Is In The Heart of the Receiver Do I sound a bit mean and horrible? Why don’t I try and enjoy my children a bit harder? Is it my perception that is unjoyous, not their performance? This is a fair point, and one that is on my list of improvements for Mummy 2.0. I do try and start with a clean slate, to reset the JoyMometer each morning. It’s just sometimes I’m too tired to feel joy, too bored of sweeping under the highchair, too unsure of how I’m doing as a mother, too busy… I’m sorry if I seem like an ungrateful cow to working parents, but my point is just that the ratio of enjoyment to unjoyment is interesting, however many hours fall into each camp.  Who Says We Have To Enjoy Our Children, Anyway? Fifteen minutes a day of pure joy is pretty good, really. You can’t enjoy anything all the time. It’s not natural for anything to impart continuous joy. Even sitting on a sun lounger in the Bahamas. You would (eventually) get bored witless, your skin would be like an ancient map, and you would get the most unsightly sunbed-sores. But if there’s anything that has the potential to provide joy on a consistent, if not constant, basis, it is your beautiful child. We just need to work on the dose. My JoyMometer Readings On a Typical Day 6.00-6.05am JoyMometer reading: 10/10 First child to wake stumbles (or is carried, if the baby) into room; wonderful sleepy snuggles ensue. 6.05-8.35am JoyMometer reading: 0/10 All three children want to get up and on it. Big boys boycott breakfast because I cut their toast in half. Apparently, they only liked cut toast yesterday. And no, we will not eat cereal today! No one is dressed until 5 minutes before leaving house. Baby screams till he is literally sick as I run back into the house for book bags – damn you to hell, separation anxiety. 8.35-8.40am JoyMometer: 5/10 (utter joy, divided by guilt and lingering resentment at behaviour all round leading up to this point) Howling, complaining mass in back of car transmogrifies into two little boys who want to nestle in mummy’s armpit before they are wrenched away to class. Two open, meek little faces look up at me and whisper, “Bye mummy.” And if I get down low and listen really carefully, occasionally, “Love you, mummy.” 8.40am-1pm JoyMometer: 7/10 Time to enjoy my baby. And do the chores. Chores reduce unfettered joy in delicious baby, who will not be put down for more than a minute and is a bit of a smashy-paws. Also falls over a lot. Smashing and falling inevitably occur while I’m emptying the bin / forcing everything into one load of the washing machine to “save time” – or make the clothes into weird sea creature shapes after “in basket” drying: my patented technique. 1pm-1.05pm JoyMometer: 10/10 My pre-schooler runs into my arms, a huge smile lighting up his beautiful face. 1.05-3.20pm JoyMometer: 8/10 “Mum, move the baby! Mum, I want a snack! Mum, play with meee!” – a repetitive, but generally pleasant period of baby-ringfencing and placing grapes into the mouth of recumbent child, while doing the Star Wars sticker books. Unless I attempt to take them out anywhere, in which case JoyMometer generally plummets. 3.20-3.40 JoyMometer: 2/10 Very happy to see biggest boy (age 6) burst out of school with a huge smile. Smile wiped off my face by 20 minutes of him letting off steam, a.k.a. the not-getting-in-the-car dance, in front of a studio audience of most of the parents and teachers, and if I’m really lucky, the Head. We are always the last to leave school. 3.40-8.40pm JoyMometer: 2.5/10 (oscillates wildly between 0/10 and 5/10) Complete pandemonium as children are reunited with each other, their toys and the top of their voices. Snack-grabbing, homework refusing, remote-throwing, crumb-grinding, baby-barging, mummy-charging, tea-refusing, patience-abusing, drink-spilling, nappy-filling, sofa-bouncing, brother-trouncing…Will they go to bed? No, they will not. 8.40pm-bedtime JoyMometer: 7/10 Immediately starts rising when they fall asleep, held in check by laundry, tidying up and the usual daily Guilt Review, in which I reflect on my motherly shortcomings. Bedtime: JoyMometer: 10/10 Those little eyelashes fanned out over their peaceful little faces.  Tears of joy under my eyelids as I go to sleep.   Kids’ Bedtime – The Last Straw Two fab bloggers who also posted on the two sides of mumdom this week: Hurrah for Gin’s Mummy Bricks A Baby on Board’s The Two Things I Know About Parenting

Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.

Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.

Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.

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Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.

Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.

Never mind “a room of one’s own”; I’d be happy with a laptop of my own. I don’t demand an office “space”. I’ve given up dreaming of even a desk of my own. I just want to use my laptop without waiting for Kate and Mim-Mim to finish downloading. Is nothing sacred?

Children. They pervade everything. The IPad, the IPhones, the Sky remote – all have a clammy coating of Haribo spittle and biscuit crumbs from the hot little paws of my offspring. I have to wipe my phone down before I can use it.

All of this I can bear. It’s family life. Their spittle is my spittle.

You want to look up a Power Ranger Mystic Force costume? Use my phone! You want to download Angry Birds Transformers? Here’s the IPad. You want to have a crazy “I am a gummy bear” disco? There’s the TV!

But not my laptop! Please, not my laptop! My laptop, that creates an office space for me, wherever I’m using it. That holds my latest burst of creativity suspended, waiting for me to finish it. All those windows open in my browser – they are the windows to my mind! They are my external hard drive. If you make my laptop freeze so I have to force quit, I lose thoughts I may never have again!

But there is a worse offender. How often do I come to my laptop and find Fantasy Football league tables?

“It was right there, so I used it!” he protests.

“Yours is just there! Use that!” I hiss.

“You can have it back in a minute, I just need to place this bet.”

“But I need to look at The White Company sale RIGHT NOW!”

I know, I know, my needs on the laptop are often frivolous, transitory and in no way contributory to the world or family good. But they are mine. And so is my laptop!

Dearest family, you can share my bed, you can share my bath, you can share my loo, you can share your lovely chocolatey drool when you kiss me. But if I can’t have a room of my own, as Virginia Woolf famously asserted is essential for a woman to write [fiction], at least grant me a laptop of my own.

Do you have a special space where you work / Pin / blog / shop? Is it constantly invaded? What of yours do you wish the kids would keep their mitts off?

Kids do judge a book by its cover – so this lovely bookcase is the perfect choice.

My children tend to find reading material by emptying all their books on the floor – or, worse, not bothering at all. So I was delighted when Tidy Books offered me the chance to review their forward-facing children’s bookcase.

Children are obviously interested in books long before they can read, so seeing the covers is more important to them than a row of spines. Even when they can read, it’s easier for them to find a book at a glance if they are facing out. As Tidy Books says:

Children do judge a book by its cover!

We’ve got loads of books in ours and it’s not full to capacity – it can hold up to 85 books. As you can see, the bookcase is deep enough to fit a few books but not so bulky that the titles at the back get lost, thus defeating the object. With different size shelves, it’s great for all our out-size books and the ledges at the front stop the small ones falling out.

It’s lovely to keep all my son’s favourites on display so he can find one for me to read to him. He’s only just three but he can still reach all the shelves. Children being simple creatures – like most of us! – they say what they see, so it’s easy to introduce new books – I just pop them on the shelf and let him feel like he’s the one making the discovery.

It’s also a nice display area to collect together books of a certain type, or season. I got very excited hunting down all our Christmas books to show off for the boys in our new bookcase. Many are very special to me, the actual ones from my own childhood all those hundreds of years ago, (as my children seem to think!).

The bookcase is very simple to put together. It comes with safety fixings to attach it to the wall, so you don’t have to worry about it toppling over. Available in a number of different colour ways (blue, pink, white and natural wood with a choice of upper and lower case letters), it would suit any child’s bedroom or playroom. I liked how its slim shape means it provides a lot of storage without taking up too much room.

The bookcase makes a lovely Christmas present for a child – and his parents will also appreciate it, as it’s practical as well as great for inspiring a love of books and reading. The bookcases are also produced in a way that is friendly to the environment, made out of wood from sustainable sources and finished with eco-friendly water lacquer (meaning low VOCs). You can even buy a personalised bookcase to make your gift extra special!

Source: www.tidy-books.com

Putting books at the heart of my son’s room has certainly increased his independent interest in them – which is a gift that will last a lifetime.