This is a sponsored post

So a few weeks ago, the folks over at Johnson’s approached me and asked if I’d participate in the Johnson’s baby bedtime challenge with Greer.

One of the most magical moments of motherhood is watching your baby sleeping … but we all know that getting to that moment is not always an easy process. Fraught bath times, overly-tired little ones and an irregular routine can all contribute to a stressful sleeping experience for both mother and baby. And parents know that better sleep for baby, means better sleep for the whole family!

That’s why the makers of JOHNSON’S® Baby want to help by encouraging mums to take the JOHNSON’S® Baby Sleep Challenge and see how much difference bathing with JOHNSON’S® Baby Bedtime products for seven nights, used as part of a clinically proven routine*, makes to your baby’s bedtime.

And I hummed and hawwed over it before agreeing, albeit with minor concerns. Why did I have concerns? Because this is what Greer does every time we put her in the bath.

I was intrigued by the sleep challenge though, as I am one of these terrible parents who *gasp* doesn’t have a set routine – mostly in part due to me spending so much time at work lately – but a routine is something I thought would possibly help little Miss Gingernut here who is frequently to be found doing this to her bedroom at 9pm.

So for the challenge week, this was my brief:

1. Bath
Bath time is a key first step in the bedtime routine. Follow the online guidance and use a product like JOHNSON’S® Baby Bedtime Bath®, which contains NaturalCalm™, a patented blend of relaxing aromas proven to relax better than lavender.

2. Massage
Massaging with a product like JOHNSON’S® Baby Bedtime Lotion can help you recognise and respond to Greer’s body language and is a wonderful way to make Greer feel safe, secure and relaxed. There’s no one way to massage your baby – provided you know how to do it safely, but guidance, hints and tips to get you started are available at www.sleepchallenge.info to make the most of massage time with Greer.

3. Off to sleep
After giving Greer a warm bath and massage enjoy quiet time together and help her wind-down further by reading, singing softly, or feeding her. Avoid active play at this time so that Greer goes to bed sleepy, but still awake.

LOL at going to bed sleepy. Hm. So, every night Greer was to have a nice warm bath using the Johnson’s Baby Bedtime Bath (which smells amazing!), have a little massage using Johnson’s Baby Bedtime Lotion then off to bed with a story. Sounds easy as pie really. Erm…

At the start of the week, I got in the bath with her in the vague hope that she’d settle down and not scream for the entire duration of the bath. What you can’t see in this photo is that her left hand was firmly clamped on my right nipple and she was horrified at the prospect of being dunked in water. Ho hum. Struggling to wash her quickly, in a very small bath and lots of dunking meant that by the time she came out the bath she was furious with me and wouldn’t talk to me. Bob took over at this point, wrapping her up and taking her away for the massage and book element. By the time I got out the bath all I could hear was peals of laughter and Greer yelling, “DING DONG!” as she pressed her belly button. Not quite the relaxed massage we’d been encouraged to perform. One story, a nappy change and a hot water bottle later she was out for the count less than 20 minutes after bathtime.

WHAT?!!

On top of that, it was past 7am – a solid hour later than her usual wake-up time – before we could hear her stomping about, terrorising the cats and destroying her bedroom again. Of course the entire week wasn’t like that, we did have one 9pm+ bedtime on day 3 but in fairness she’d slept for 3 hours at nursery and was probably over this whole bed thing anyway.

So, three days in and so far so good. I will be back tomorrow with an overview of the last 4 days and some hilarious photographs for you but in the MEANTIME!

Johnson’s have very kindly offered up not one, not two but FIVE Baby Bedtime hampers for my lovely readerbase. To be in with a chance of winning one of these kits, you can do each of the following for ONE entry (so, do all of these and you’ll have 4 entries into the competition.)

1. Leave a comment below
2. In your comment, tell me a challenge you’ve faced as a parent and how you overcame it.
2. Retweet this (and leave a comment telling me you’ve retweeted)
3. Be a fan on Facebook (and leave a comment telling me you’re a fan)

This competition will be open until Sunday 14th November at 9pm.

Posted under for the kids, reviews

I’m a Mum to four kids who seem to migrate towards brightly coloured plastic tat, so the Early Learning Centre has been a frequently visited shop for us over the last ten years. I’ve always been relatively impressed by their range of art supplies like air drying clay, paint and suchlike but the range of toys left me cold – primarily because it seemed to be extremely pricey for our salary range but also because the toys stereotyped by gender left me feeling enraged.

I have two sons and two daughters. I spend a significant amount of my parenting time assuring my amazing children that they can be anything they choose to be even though the Fawcett Society has highlighted that women working full-time still face being paid 17% less than their male counterparts on an hourly basis – a figure that rises to 20% if that woman happens to be from an ethnic minority, 36% if she works part-time and 45% if she both works part-time and works in London. Doesn’t that disgust you? It appalls me and I don’t think it matters if you’re a feminist or not, this pay gap affects every single working person out there. It’s revolting that in this day and age where we’re all supposed to be forward-thinking, liberal and equal that it’s acceptable for the pay gap to still be tangible.

With that in mind, it’s not like I expect the toy companies to pick up the slack for the pay gap but – and this is a big but – this kind of gender stereotyping begins at such an early age and the Early Learning Centre’s marketing is just one admittedly major example of this. Let me show you a webpage from the ELC’s retail site (click for embiggenisation):

Just in case you’re a complete thicket, I’ve highlighted the relevant parts and following the ELC’s lead I’ve even used the appropriate colours. Quite simply, if you have a daughter she’s clearly a princess who aspires to be a nurse or a ballerina. If you have a son, he can be a doctor because of course it’s a man’s job. Right from pre-school levels our children are being segregated into traditional gender roles before they really have a concept of gender constructs themselves.

You know what else pisses me off? And these are simply examples from presents our kids have been bought – a pink shopping till and basket because obviously only women do the shopping or work in retail. A blue multistorey garage since only boys like cars. They even have a pink GLOBE just in case our daughters are too female to look at a regular one. Heaven forbid, eh?

In the interests of fairness, I emailed the ELC yesterday saying:

I have to be honest straight off the bat and say that my post is going to be criticising the shift over the last 10 years in the ELC’s product range. I have personally avoided ELC since giving birth to my daughter 3 years ago as I realised how heavily gender stereotyped ELC chooses to be and the final straw for me today was seeing this page which tells me that my daughter can be a nurse but only my son can be a doctor.
The product range reinforces traditional gender roles – pink microwaves, dolls prams and kitchen sets for girls, dinosaurs and train sets for boys which contradicts the UK educational system’s approach to free play and I would greatly appreciate a statement with regards to this concern.

Their spokesperson responded today with this:

‘Come down to Early learning Centre and see for yourself the huge range of toys in an assortment of colours. Customers can choose a red kitchen, a blue kitchen, a blue cash register, a yellow dolls house or a gorgeous farm

Our photography features boys ironing, girls playing with space aliens, boys playing with dolls, boys cooking and pushing buggies, girls building and playing with remote control insects. We offer anyone who wants to buy toys so much to choose from that no one should feel disappointed when they walk into our stores.

which comprehensively answered my query. Or not.

I’m interested to know how other parents feel about it. Do you identify as feminist? Do you agree with what I’m saying or do you think I’m overreacting?

Posted under for the kids

All Little and Large swap parcels should be sent! If you haven’t got yours away on time, please let your swap partner and I know. Once you’ve blogged your swap, comment here with a link so I can share it

Looking forward to seeing what everyone has made!

Posted under for the kids, swaps

Chatting with Kirsty recently, she told me that her son Devin had signed up as a partner in Chrissy’s felidae swap and I thought to myself, “Why on earth have I never thought about this before?”

So! I have a swap idea – it’s a parent and child(ren) collaboration, the kids make something for each other and send it along with a letter and the parents make something for the children and send a treat for the other parent. Does that make sense? This way, hopefully we can foster penpal-type relationships between our increasingly computerised spawn whilst making friends with another parent?

If you’re interested, please comment so I can get an idea of how successful this would be. A lengthy prep time before sending would make sense, so final posting in early May? What do you think?

Posted under for the kids, swaps

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all well and happy this fabulous Friday. Isn’t it a glorious day? I may or may not have had a little too much sugar this morning. Combine that with GREAT! EXCITEMENT! as Bob & I are getting a night off parenting tonight and perhaps you could forgive the gratuitous use of exclamation marks. Bob’s wonderful parents have volunteered to take the three youngest tonight while Findlay goes to his Dad’s, so we’re actually going to spend some time together that doesn’t involve housework. What a novel idea! Have you got anything fun planned for the weekend?

So – the title of my blog post today is artistically challenged because I really am. It’s not even funny, I am the most cack-handed wannabe artist that I know. I wanted to do art for Standard Grade – which is the Scottish equivalent to GCSE – and the art teacher pretty much laughed me out of the room. I can’t draw to save myself, I don’t have the techniques for painting but I am so keen! I’ve been trying to create faces for the little dolls I’ve been making and I just can’t seem to do it.

These are the new dolls – four girls and a boy (I’m going to put together a tutorial for the boy doll at some point soon, promise!). They’ve been sewn up and finished for almost a week and are sitting on my sewing chair just waiting for their faces. As a reminder, this is the dolly I’d made for Elise:

And I wasn’t thrilled by the face. I ended up repainting the eyes more than once because I felt they just weren’t quite what I’d expected. It sounds like such a simple thing doesn’t it, to draw an eye? But I’m a big believer in the power and mystique of eyes, and I want these dollies to be loved and cherished so it’s important to me that the eyes are enchanting, beautiful and not at all frightening. So I shall plough on with drawing eyes until I think I’ve found an eye that works. Wish me luck!

Posted under for the kids, sewing

A year ago today, a gaggle of us were sitting in Kirsty‘s living room, celebrating her forthcoming birthday with a slumber party all too reminiscent of my days at boarding school. Alas – as is an apparently normal event for the Fab Five – one of our number was absent. She had a pretty good excuse in fairness since Eileen was in hospital across the city, allegedly in labour. I’ll never forget that night – a room stowed full of people, most of us constantly refreshing twitter to see if there was any new news before we got the text message to say that Elise was here safely and a roar of celebration went up. Amazing.

So little Elise turned a whole year old today and it appalls me how quickly that time has passed. From a mothering perspective I remember Findlay’s first year as being one of the longest since I was a kid, when you measured years by when Santa Claus paid a visit. Subsequent years have flown by all too quickly and I could easily sit here and get maudlin about the fact that I have an eight-and-a-half year old son. Eileen and I mused this afternoon just how quickly the time has passed and there’s simply not enough words to explain the conflict of emotions this has stirred in me.

In any case, having a fully stocked craft cantina and a dwindling bank balance I decided that 2010 will be the year of the handmade gift and Elise was the first – and some would say unfortunate – recipient. Whilst searching for a tutorial I thought I’d bookmarked (Mimi Kirchner’s handsewn felt doll) I found this tutorial on Martha Stewart’s website, a step-by-step guide showing you how to make the dolls made famous by Etsy’s #1 seller, Emily Martin.

This was a surprisingly time-consuming project, although that is probably down to my rampant disorganisation and the fact that I sewed the arms by hand. I did really like this little project, my sole complaint being that I’m not confident in my arty skills and having to leave the face until the doll is sewn up was extremely daunting for me. I must apologise for the lack of detail in the photo but poor Bob had about three seconds to snap it for me as I finally ran out the door earlier.

This was my finished version. As she was going to be loved, slobbered on, chewed and rough-housed I deliberately left off any embellishments which Elise may have managed to remove which has left her looking a little sparse to my eye. I have promised a little coat for her which I’ll make at a later date.

I really don’t find it easy to “big up myself” and I’m constantly looking for things to criticise so I’ll end this post here and accept any lavish praise you’d like to heap upon me now

Happy birthday, Elise!

Posted under for the kids, sewing

Wow! It’s Christmas Eve – how the Dickens did that happen?!

I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you all very much for your support and comments over this year. You’ve shared in some of the most magnificent times in our lives as well as some of the worst, you’ve all been so very kind and I’m thrilled to have made so many friends in all of you. 2010 is going to be so busy and I promise to make an effort to stay in contact as much as possible. I wish each and every one of you a fabulous Christmas, and for those who have already celebrated their holiday for the year I hope and pray it was filled with love, laughter and joy.

Now – a little quicky for those of you with young children. As we ALL know, Santa Claus is coming tonight! HOW EXCITED ARE YOU?! But with it being so snowy outside the reindeer will definitely need a bit of help to find your house, won’t they? Every year my children’s nursery put a little bag of Reindeer Food into their Christmas folder and I thought I’d share it with you. (Please excuse the photos as I’m still having to use my phone. We’re hoping Santa brings us a new camera this year!)

All you need is a few tablespoons of porridge oats, mix with a teaspoon each of different coloured glitter, add in some cut up shiny paper if you have it and pop into little bags. I’ve put some into a baby food jar with a painted lid for my little nieces to sprinkle outside tonight before going to bed.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa is good to you!

Posted under for the kids, with the kids

Every Wednesday I take the kids to a nursery rhymes class in a Glasgow library with my sister Stephanie and niece Bailey. We’ve been going since before Greer was born and we’ve made quite a group of friends now, including Jean and her wee daughter Molly. Molly’s first birthday party was on Saturday and I did some face painting there only to have one of Jean’s Aunties ask me to do her face. “No problem!” said I, and this was the last face I painted of the day.

Now, before I show the picture I need to be honest. I estimated that this lovely lady was in her mid-fifties. She’s actually 71 (and says she doesn’t mind me mentioning that on my website)! I honestly hope when I’m 71 that I have the cojones to do stuff like this. Awesome.

Overall I was pretty happy with how it went, being that I haven’t painted for other people for a looooong time. I didn’t have time to get new brushes, hence the very thick black lines but on the whole it went not bad!

Posted under for the kids, with the kids

I’m not really the kind of person who suits a hat, much to my chagrin. It is the bane of my existence that pretty woollies are out of my reach. That said, when Bob & I went to Stockholm in January for our wedding anniversary I picked up a phenomenal ear infection which took nearly three months to heal and so this winter I’m simply not prepared to risk that again.

I’ve already half-heartedly started my craft neutral challenge and this yarn (Sirdar Denim Ultra) has been in my stash for about seven years. It met my criteria of being warm, fluffy and quick to knit up so I combined it with this pattern (Ravelry link) which is supposed to be a slouchy beret.

Note the ubiquitous hairbobbles around the wrist mark of the mother of daughters. The eagle eyed amongst you will note an error about three rows into the pattern caused by Erica leaping on me while I was having a knit break and thus losing my stitch marker but since my friend recently told me that Muslim prayer rugs always have an imperfection since only Allah makes things perfectly, I’ve relaxed my ridiculous perfectionist streak. It’s a really mind-altering way of looking at things. In any case, although (I think) the error is highlighted perfectly in the picture it’s really not obvious in reality.

As the title suggests there’s more to this post. Erica has decided that actually she rather likes my hat so I have now cast on Amy Swenson’s Cabled hat (pdf link) for her, but in the meantime I’m having to tolerate this nonsense. Two years old and she’s already raiding my wardrobe. Of course, as is the way of these things she suits the hat much better than I do. Ah well

Posted under for the kids, knitting

Firstly I’d just like to say what an amazing and wonderful bunch of people I am HONOURED to have as readers and therefore as friends. I was gobsmacked by the response to my last post and I’m truly overwhelmed at the outpouring of support and experience that came from you all. Thank you, all, from the bottom of my heart

OKAY! Now we’re done with the schmaltzy PDA I can show you what I’ve been doing while I’ve not been doing anything. I know this won’t come as a surprise to any of you, given that I have four children but I’ve been indulging a lot in that naughty S word…*

…SHOPPING. You filthy minded scamps. What else did you think I was going to say?

So. My good friend Evelyn posted photographs of her gorgeous daughter Esmé over a year ago and of course being me my first response was, “ZOMGshe’sgorgeousEvelynWHEREDIDYOUGETHERDRESS?!!” Evelyn graciously directed me to Cindy’s shop on Hyenacart but alas, she didn’t have any fabulous technicolour dreamdresses available in stock. I bookmarked the store then completely forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago when I was clearing out my email, I found an exchange between Cindy & I. I decided to drop her a quick line to see if she was still making the dresses and oh FRABJOUS day not only was she making the dresses but she had space for me to place an order. Hooray!

I thought Greer was probably a little young for the full twirly dress effect so I got one for Erica and one for my niece Bailey. My sister Stephanie and I have a pretty good deal going, I give her Erica’s clothes once she’s outgrown them then she passes Bailey’s clothes back to me for Greer. We have just acquired a new niece last week when my stepbrother and his girlfriend had a little girl so no doubt these dresses will be passed on to little Maissie too! Anyway, I digress. Point is, beautiful dresses of wonder arrived this afternoon and I immediately stopped what I was doing to make Erica put hers on. It’s so colourful it has immediately washed away bad mood (I was really irritated today because it’s been raining constantly for months and I need some sunshine!)

I think Erica likes it.

What do you think?

*That reminded me of a story. When I was in Primary 3 (so 6-7 years old) I remember grassing someone in my class in for swearing. The teacher asked me what the swear word started with and my precocious little reading mind went into overdrive and I said, “It began with an S.” The teacher had a think and couldn’t work out which particular profanity had been levelled so told me to whisper it, so I whispered, “shit“. She gave me into trouble and told be it didn’t start with S, it started with Sh! Isn’t it funny the things you remember?

Posted under for the kids, recommendations