July 2025

There’s nothing more unwelcome than an early guest. This is abundantly more true when you have kids. Being a parent sees you socialising much…

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Baby naptime: the Holy Grail of parenting. If you can just get it right, you can get the washing up done, have a shower,…

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It had to happen. Six years, three kids, a gazillion Lego pieces. Sooner or later, one of those bits was going to go up…

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  Updated for BritMums 2015 – another year, another wardrobe dilemma! (See bottom of post.) I’m going to BritMums Live – yay! I have nothing…

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Mary Berry would weep. I bake so seldom (once a year, per kid) that I have to buy all new ingredients each time in…

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Finding the holidays tough? Why not ramp it up by opening the book bag? And realising that you have squandered half the week on…

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Harmless bouncy fun or arena of doom? The jury’s out on trampolines in our garden. Do your kids manage to play nicely on the trampoline…

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So, I was cleaning my teeth – pretty standard morning stuff. When I inhaled. And somehow sucked a glob of toothpaste into my windpipe….

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“If I’ve told you once…” Do you sometimes feel like you’ll go mad if you have to say the same thing to your child…

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A mum is the sum of her kids. True or false? “Hello gorgeous!” Says everyone to your baby. Completely ignoring you, the one holding…

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The lovely Jude at Make Me An Earth Mother has just launched a brilliant new linky #ThingsOnlyParentsSay. It’s very simple to join in –…

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View image | gettyimages.com  Where are you when I need you, Mary Poppins? I don’t need a hero. I don’t even need a full-time…

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We’re all fussy eaters, one way or another. The only difference is, as adults, we learn to eat up without a fuss. Children are…

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    To my children  Other mums are never late Last mum standing at the school gate. Other mums bake lovely cakes, Their icing…

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Families need food. Fact. Yet can families buy food? No. Not without public censure, anyway. If the tuts, hisses and glares of supermarket shopping…

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Turning 40 is no big deal. Unless you’re turning 40. I used to think it was no big deal too – when I was…

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When your child looks good enough to eat. Literally.

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

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Do you always turn the wrong way? Do you struggle with your right and left? This quiz is for you!

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The Family Travel Show is on at Olympia on 31st October and 1st November – and you can take your children without worrying about…

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My mission to achieve my dream Scandi-French-rustic home – one table at a time. “Are you going to paint everything in the house white?” my…

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“Inbox zero” is the bane of the digital world, but in the domestic sphere it is “laundry basket zero”. Are you, too, chasing the…

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Desperate to get back on the slopes but now have a baby (or two) in tow? When’s the best time to start your child…

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“Can we look at the pond?” my little one says. “Of course, darling,” I reply. I look down in wonder at his little head…

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  Wry Mummy is two! And still a complete mystery to most of my family and friends. “A blog?” “It’s my own website, grandma….

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Finding the holidays tough? Why not ramp it up by opening the book bag? And realising that you have squandered half the week on having fun when you should have been cracking on with the…holiday project.

“Having fun” is perhaps a little too strong. The bedding-down stage of any holiday is always a little tough on all involved – if also lovely to have your babies home. You’ve all just about settled into being around each other all the time – when you spot something in the hall. Hidden under the detritus of the day trips you have manfully taken your family on, there nestles the source of all discontent.

The book bag.

You open it with bated breath. It’s like remembering it’s spelling day when you haven’t even looked at the list, but many times worse. This isn’t ten measly words we’re talking about.

It’s a …project.

“Oh, look, darling, you’ve got a project on c-c-castles!” I trill at my seven-year-old.

Instantly the response comes:

“It’s not fair! It’s my holiday too! That’s LOADS! I don’t even know what a battlement looks like!”

And that’s just from me.

All I get from my son is a nonchalant shrug as he continues playing Cut the Rope.

That is, until I say, “5 minutes more, and then we need to start doing your writing.”

“I HATE writing! Why doesn’t he have to do any homework?”

He means his brother. Who is 5. But who, oh yes, it turns out, ALSO has a project.

I have a pair of projects. A couple of crammers. A hellfire of homeworks.

Why, why do we have to have holiday homework? I’m not saying my sons don’t need the extra stimulation and practice at schoolwork. But I literally have to coax and beg every written word or picture out of them. The holiday rhythm we worked so hard to establish is shattered by my incursions into their chillaxing time to do written work.

Yes, after many Tangfastics and TV ban threats, we get it done eventually. It’s nice to have a sense of achievement of having completed something more special than the standard worksheets and reading books. My eldest even won a star award from his teacher for his last project. Which made me incredibly proud.

But at what cost? Never truly feeling we can relax, until it’s done. Having at least one extra row a day with my dearest offspring over and above the usual mealtime / TV / putting shoes on rows?

Of course, we could do it all the first weekend and get it over with. But everyone needs a break at the end of a term or half-term, and I feel forcing them to start work when they’ve only just shed the school routine is too much for my pair.

Maybe it’s just us that finds it so invasive? Do you have any tips for making holiday projects painless?

A huge thanks to everyone who supports my blog, and to BritMums – I am thrilled to be through to the Final of the Brilliance in Blogging Awards. 

Spot the difference?! Me at 28, 30 (pre smartphones!) and very nearly 40.

Do you swear by your moisturiser? Or is it just a hope and a prayer?

I’ve been using the same face cream for 16 years. So you’d think if I look younger than I am, it proves that my face cream works.

But does it?

I can’t ever know – because I don’t know what I’d look like if I’d used another brand that happened to catch my eye that fateful day that I bound myself to a beauty product. Nor what I’d look like if I’d used nothing.

It’s the great conjuring trick of the beauty industry. The Emperor’s New Clothes of skincare.

But I don’t want to be the little boy who points out that I might as well have used Vaseline.

Why?

Because I love my product. I love the smell, the colour, the texture, the way it rubs in, the packaging, the absorption, the plumped-up feeling afterwards.

Most of all, I love it because it makes me, me. Literally, on a cellular level. When I smooth it on, it’s like a ritual of comfort, reminding me of all the nights I have put it on over the huge changes of the last decade and a half: giggling at the evening I’d just had at the pub; preparing myself for the night feeds ahead; mentally checking the school bags for the morning.

There have been a couple of occasions, when caught in the heady lights of the duty free (while my husband thought I was buying sweets for the children’s ears on the flight), when I considered straying. Dabbling with a new brand. Dipping my toe into another product in the range. Just for a change. But nothing else is quite the same.

It’s occurred to me, as I count down to my 40th birthday in March, that I should ask the lady if I need to change my moisturiser to suit my skin, which is now classed as “mature” by the beauty industry (which I infinitely prefer to “menopausal”, as appeared on my medical notes recently!).

But I’m reluctant in case I’m told that I should switch. And to be fair, if I look older these days, I can’t really blame the product. Sixteen years is a hell of a lot of time to hold back – surely no cream could hold the weight of that.

And since I can never know whether I’d look better now if  I’d used something else, there’s no incentive to change.

The whole face cream promise, although backed by massive investments in increasingly advanced science, might be a myth, a fantasy – but it’s my little fantasy, and I’m staying loyal.

What’s your #heroproduct? Do you chop and change your moisturiser – and do you notice the difference in terms of signs of ageing?

My #heroproduct

Note: This is not a sponsored post. As mentioned above, I’ve bought this cream for 16 years of my own accord and this is my view.

This post is part of my #40till40 series – my countdown of 40 days till I turn 40.

Quelling your inner squeal is one of the many lessons a mother must learn, and quick. From the first time you see a newborn nappy, to the last time you sluiced some sick-y sheets, there is a lot to make you want to squeal in child-rearing. So there I was, enjoying some Mother’s Day sitting-down time in the sun, when what should be thrust in my face but these little fellas: a couple of slimy frogs that looked about to fly out of my eldest’s boy’s hands right into my silently-screaming face. But I adore and want to encourage their fearlessness in the face of nature, so I held my nerve and managed to say, “Oh, how lovely, well done! Don’t let them dry out in the sun, now”, while retching a little into my cup of tea. 

The boys are always presenting me with gifts of nature – matted feathers, empty (or is it?) snailshell, a wiggly worm – “Look, mummy, it’s head’s ‘come’ off!” “Don’t worry, it’ll grow a new one..!” But this is the first time I’ve been faced with grown frogs. I’m not that squeamish, but I was really hoping that the next time I saw a frog, it would be my darling Freddo on Easter Day.

Related posts: The Mummy and the Frog – A Love Story
Cleaning Up Chunks – A Mother’s Glory
The Ordinary Moments #2 – Walking The Kids

Joining in with The Ordinary Moments at Mummy Daddy Me

No Freddos for me till Lent is over, but meanwhile I’d love to be considered for a BIB award in the Fresh Voice, Laugh or Writer category. Simply click on one of the badges below!

Younger siblings get a raw deal: less attention, second-hand clothes, toys with bits missing…But in some respects they’re way ahead of the game – all thanks to their older siblings. The signs are easy to spot.

1. Twinkle Twinkle Little Fart: Mummy might forget to teach you all the nursery rhymes, but that’s OK, cos your big brother taught you all the rude versions. Cue “Happy Birthday to you, I saw a big poo” at granny’s 80^th.

2. You Are Nails. The daily rough and tumble of family life makes you immune to minor injuries. You only ask for a plaster cos you know it gets you a sweetie.

3. Baby Swings Are For Wimps. You will only go on the big swings. You will try and stand up on them. Before falling off and running to dangle dangerously at the top of the fireman’s pole, causing the whole park to tut at your mother.

4. You Eat Chocolate. Yeah, that’s right. It’s not because your mum is a bad person. It’s because you scream the house down if you don’t get the same Freddo fix as your brothers.

5. You Can Read. OK, you can’t actually properly, full-on read. But you know your letters and your numbers way before the others did. How else do you ensure you get your fair share of Tangfastics?

6. Spoon As Large As Your Face: You refuse to use childish props such as mini cutlery and lidded cups. You can’t fit your mash in your mouth or go a meal without smashing a glass, but at least you’re like your siblings.

7. You Are Good At Sharing. Well, you’re OK. To be honest, if your siblings aren’t around, it’s dog eat dog – and you have ninja training.

8. You Eat Quickly. You have to, or your vulture older brothers will nick your chips.

9. You’ve Seen Star Wars. All of them. You’re three.

10. You Are Happy. Of course, children without siblings are happy too. But despite having less attention from your parents, you wouldn’t change your big brothers – who love you fiercely if not always gently – for anything in the world.

Except maybe a new scooter. Their old one is knackered.

A child has been sick. My husband, the lighter sleeper of us, is first to the scene. By the time I react to the…

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It’s that time again. The time I’ve been thinking about ever since I woke up. Baby bedtime. Tonight I will do it right. I…

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‘7 Years’ makes me cry. It’s the whole of life wrapped up in one beautiful song but I just want to press pause.

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  What do you say to a new mum without giving it all away? After “congratulations!” and “she’s gorgeous!”, how do you not launch…

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With parenting, does one size fit all? 

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When you can’t keep the naughty cupboard a secret, is it time to just give it up altogether?

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Thinking of a third baby? Read this first.

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Are children children or do boys and girls have discerning characteristics? Take this simple quiz to find out whether your child is a boy or…

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Some mums know exactly what they’re doing. Then there’s the rest of us.

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“I know, why don’t we put all our money together? Like a team? And I’ll look after it.”  Do you have a Jedi Master in…

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Mum’s banging on about giving up chocolate for Lent – like that’s a big deal! We could give up way better things than that….

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It’s great that my kids love me. But I want them to like me too! Is that too much to ask?

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