My Inbox Delights

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"Share with us your 5 favourite blogs and tell us why you love them"

The prompt from BritMums reminded me of my Inbox Delights meme that I did a few months ago, but sadly died a death on the second stage (sob, no-one loves me!). I can most certainly tell you my five favourite blogs and why, absolutely no problem. They really won't have changed that much since the last time I wrote it, or since I nominated a few of them for the MADS. The only thing that has changed is that I've met two of them who have become real-life friends.

These are the five that arrive in my inbox daily and that I always comment on (ok, 98% of the time!)

  1. MammyWoo: There is a reason why she was nominated by me and everyone else in the MADS for best new blog. And there's an even bigger reason why she won; because she rocks big time. She has become one of my real-life best mates and it's not a good day without a text from LexyWoo! Hearing her journey to overcome PND makes me so unbelievably proud of her, but she is so much more than just that. See here, here and here for typical Lexy-Life!
  2. GhostWriterMummy: Although I haven't met this amazing blogger, I know that we would get on like a house on fire. She is a fantastic mother and teacher, but a complete and utter inspiration to me also. She has helped me to deal with issues that I have surrounding The Boy's birth, and has done the same for countless other mothers, co-founding Maternity Matters. Throughout all of this, she has also come to terms with her own birth trauma successfully and is currently expecting her third child. Warning, this post may make you cry; it did me.
  3. The Crazy Kitchen: I love this family-orientated blog and Helen has become a good real-life friend that I have made a number of times, always feeling like I was catching up with an old friend. If you want to see the cooking capabilities of a two year old, this is where you'll see his finesse at cracking eggs. If you want to find out how to make the most amazing house out of tiny cardboard boxes, look no further. And you have to try these.
  4. The Moiderer: This was one of the first blogs that I came across, and she is one of the first people that I started following on twitter. The Moiderer is not, as I honestly thought, someone who enforces the deceasement of others but said in a heavy Scottish accent (a la Taggert), but someone who chats a lot. And she chats a lot of brilliant and enthralling tales about family life with the Little One, her Thinking Slimmer journey (which is incredible) and turmoils in her life. Heart-wrenching and heart-warming, I adore her blog, and I adore her.
  5. Reluctant Housedad: He may be a reluctant SAHD but he loves it really. This is the man who can iron a shirt in 27 seconds, that's yoke an' all! Having adjusted from quite a high-flying position to that of keeper of the house, I love hearing his tales of discovery with his three children, the missus and reading his new and ingenious recipes.

Sod it, who am I to stop at 5?

My other favourites are these four.

A Tale of Two Wizards

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There once was a little boy who lived in a nice house with his mummy and daddy. Although the staircase had lots of space underneath it, and he was very curious as to the space and what was hidden in there*, he didn't live under the stairs. Unlike another little boy who did have to occupy such a space, he had his own bedroom.

However, he did have quite a vivid imagination and started to dream of magical things, like wizards and witches and riding around on his special broomstick for sweeping the kitchen. Unlike the other little boy, for him these were only a dream. The other little boy was destined to be a great wizard who would be really good at flying on a broomstick, regardless of whether it was meant for cleaning up the lunchtime crumbs or for chasing a ball around the sky.

Although for one it was a reality, and for the other it was fiction, they both had a dream of wearing fancy wizards' robes. While one of these boys would buy these wizarding robes from Madam Malkin using golden coins, the other had a beautiful parcel arrive one day. He opened the parcel and found inside a garment lovingly wrapped in embossed tissue paper. Carefully removing the seal, he then ripped open said tissue paper (in the style that only a two year old can manage) and discovered the most gorgeous and sumptious velveteen wizarding robes in a plush purple. The robes were embellished with magical symbols and the collar and cuffs were a mystical silver fabric, and it fastened at the front with a single button. Rushing to put it on, with the help of his mummy, he placed the wizard's hat upon his head!

One of the two boys may have had more magical powers, but The Boy knew which one looked the best!

As he practised performing spells upon everything in sight, including his mummy (needs to perfect the slimming spell) and the dirty dishes, one rebounded off the chutney cooking on the stove and knocked him onto his little bottom. Blinking, he tried to clamber to his feet but found he could only hop!

Hopping around the hallway, his mummy was quite intrigued to discover that the little boy that she'd always called 'a jumping frog' had indeed fulfilled that prophecy. His skin had become a rich green with lighter spots, and his ticklish tummy was now golden yellow, making it much easier to tickle. Looking at him with his new attire, she soon realised that he was destined to become 'The Boy Who Hopped'.

The Boy was sent these costumes for review purposes from PartyKids. While the story is fiction, my opinion (that they are absolutely gorgeous and extremely well-designed and made children's costumes) is not.

*His Christmas presents.

Friday Funny

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Mr. TheBoyandMe and The Boy have just been playing hide and seek. This is without a shadow of a doubt, The Boy's most favourite game, and he plays it daily with Daddy until he's exhausted (Daddy, not The Boy).

"You go and hide Daddy! No I will hide, you count!"

<Daddy counts, The Boy hides>

"I'm coming, ready or not! Where are you The Boy? Are you in the dining room?"

"No Daddy, I'm in the kitchen room!"

—

Earlier today we were driving home along the plush and swanky streets of the Victorian town in which we live. The Boy has a habit of pointing out similiar cars to mine and saying "that's a little like your car mummy". Often it is, often it is nothing like it. He's getting very good at recognising Renaults (I have a Scenic).

He randomly came out with, "That's a little bit like Nana's house!" pointing to a four-storey Victorian semi-detached.

I replied, "No, it's nothing like Nana's house."

My mother, like we do, lives in a three-bedroom ex-council semi-detached. He repeated it most insistantly and so did I. In the end I said (as I often do in a similar way to his father) "In so much as it has four walls and a roof, yes I suppose it is. But not really".

He replied, "It is mummy!"

So then I gave in and asked, "How is it like Nana's house?"

"It's got a door!"

Friday Funny

Empower Your Buying

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When I became a mum and went on maternity leave it took a little while to adjust to the drop in income. Then suddenly, the budgeting and money-saving techniques which I'd witnessed and learnt as a child, from my own mum, kicked in. Most food was home-made from scratch, coupons were snipped, bulk purchases made in cash & carry stores, online offers and codes sought out; bargains galore were hunted down. I was a woman possessed and the Internet became a powerful tool in my money-saving mission; through it I learnt about a variety of sites that encourage such behaviour.

One of my money-saving mechanims was cash and carry facilities. Now obviously, it helps to bulkbuy consumables like kitchen roll or jam (we are fond of the strawberry squidgy stuff and it's cheaper than in the supermarket!) because we go through them at a fair old pace. Other things like handcream and spices also make sense to buy in bulk.

Thirty baby thermometers? Not so much really.

Which is a shame because they are always cheaper than in the shops and it grieves me to not be able to save money just because I can't use 29 other thermometers. Surely I must know someone who could do with them?

This is where you need someone else to have thought of the same thing. Wouldn't it be good if there was a website where you could join together with those other people who wanted to take advantage of the huge reduction through bulk buying?

Well there is, it's called BuyaPowa.

And quite frankly it does what is says on the label. BuyaPowa searches out popular 'wants' and works to making those bulk-buy discounts happen. They approach the companies and obtain a fairly good starting discount price and then through 'co-buying' they bring together shoppers into a single bulk-buying transaction. By clicking on the 'join co-buy' button you become one of those (normally) one hundred people who can take advantage of this limited-time offer. The best bit (and I have honestly scoured the site and see no 'catch') is that when more people join the co-buy, the price drops.

For example, BuyaPowa currently have a co-buy on offer (ends tomorrow morning). It's for a Tommee Tippee Baby Healthcare Kit which contains a digital oral thermometer, toothbrush, brush and comb, scissors, nail clippers, two emery boards and a nasal aspirator (invaluable at this time of year). This kit normally retails at £15.49, but BuyaPowa's starting price was £9.50. Now mathematics is not my forte but that's clearly a bargain already!

However, that's no longer the price. It's now£6.50!

Oh and did I mention that there's free shipping on that item?

Anyone who has joined in the co-buy above will get that baby essential kit for the bargain price of £6.50. And what's even more impressive is that the person who manages to share the co-buy and bring in more buyers than other people in the bargain will receive their item for free.

There are three stages of price-drops:

  • 1-24 people: starting discounted price which is below RRP and normally equivalent to Amazon's prices
  • 25-49 people: first price drop
  • 50-74 people: second price drop
  • 75-100 people: third and final price drop with the best price achieved.

There is also the option to request a co-buy through one of three ways; either through requesting an item or registering your interest in previously requested products and categories, or by adding their BuyaPowa widget to your toolbar so that when you shop online you can click it for an item. I've got mine nestling next to my 'Add to Wish List' widgetty doo-dah.

And because the lovely folk at BuyaPowa are quite clued up about these things, they've made it easier to contact them on Facebook or twitter.

So the question that BuyaPowa want to know from you is, which products would you like to buy for less?

This is a sponsored post. Content and my thoughts are my own, and I do actually think it's a clever system.

More On Monday: Rainbow Pizza

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Yesterday I posted this as my Silent Sunday, and I had many people asking what The Boy was making so I thought I'd share with you.

Aware that the cooking experiences that he'd had so far had revolved around cake, I decided we'd make pizza together. A relatively simple main meal to involve your child in, and promoting healthy eating along with encouraging to eat his tea. I won't lie, it wasn't without stress. I am never making pizza dough ever again. Next time, I shall buy a ready-made base from the place where 'every little helps'. Because they're not wrong, it would have helped a lot!

Oh, and the Silent Snday picture was of him sprinkling on parmesan cheese.

He needed a little help with the tomato puree because he hasn't quite got the concept of him spreading with the back of a spoon, what with him being two and all that. However, the rest of it, he did himself with me just pointing at blank spaces to put a topping on. It turned out to be quite a quite a large pizza for him and so he only had a quarter of it, but he wolfed it down.

Just goes to show how tasty home-cooked food can be, doesn't it?

—

I'm linking this up to The Crazy Kitchen's 'Cooking with your Toddler' linky and the 'Recipe Shed' over on Reluctant Housedad

The Crazy Kitchen

Recipe Shed

Listography: Top Five Searches

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The inimitable KateTakes5 has set us the challenge of revealing the top five searches on our blog.

Some people have exciting results like "surfing on jelly" or "nakes bananas". I don't. On WordPress, I have three variations of my blog name and twelve variations for a cosmetic review I did. Oh and an ostrich.

I'm going to check Google Analytics instead…

They're just as bad!

I'm going to sift through the review referrals and pick out the next five that are about content instead.

  1. Learning Through Play: this makes me happy as it's one of the things that I'd like my blog associated with.
  2. Composterium: and now it's going through my head again! Thank you Mr. Bloom!
  3. We Went To The Animal Fayre: ah, that was a good weekend.
  4. Helen Jessup: I kid you not.
  5. I Need a Wee-Wee: ah, famous for my potty-training posts.

I can't believe number four…
Photobucket

ShowOff ShowCase: The One That Should Have Done Better

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There's always one post that we've written that we were proud of, that we put the final punctuation mark to and thought "yep, that's a good one! They're going to love it!"

And then either no bugger read it, or, like I've had before, about 50 people read it but no-one commented!

I used to think it was the stats that counted, but it's not; it's the comments. They confirm that your writing is decent and that your readers find your ramblings enjoyable.

Hence this linky to help other ShowOff the posts that were underappreciated. This weekend, I'd like you to help those posts to hold their heads up high! Brush them off, stick my badge at the bottom of the post and show them off for everyone to see. Don't be ashamed of them, help them shout at everyone: I SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER!

ShowOff ShowCase

Potty-Mouthed!

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As many of you will know, in the Summer holidays I braved the very important stage known as 'potty training'. Not me, The Boy! I've been trained for 33 years and aside from the odd Tena Lady moment, I'm doing well thanks!

Earlier today, whilst shopping in Cardiff, The Boy announced that he needed to go to the toilet. We were standing in the shoe department of Next at the time, on our way to buy him a new Winter coat. I about turned and asked the assistant if they had one. Of course not, they are a clothes shop. I knew that expecting him to last the five minutes to the nearest one was unfair and so basically asked if I could use a cubicle in their changing rooms.

She looked at me, aghast!

I stopped, pointed to The Boy and then explained that I had a travel potty, everything would be perfectly hygienic and he was desperate. Thank you Next for letting me use the changing rooms! And thank you Potette for creating your travel potty in the first place!

And based on that, I thought I'd share my must-haves for potty-training your infant:

Seriously, you will find potty-training a whole lot easier with a potty that is easily cleaned. I found that I'd collected a lot of potties ready for training, and this is the only one that he really liked. The other 'standard' potty has gone to my mum's for use there.

  • A Potette

This marvellous little travel-potty has saved our bacon so many times that we've almost got enough for a pig of our own! The Potette Plus (which is what we have) can be used either as a portable potty with specially designed bags (absorbent pad at the base to soak up the urine), or the legs can be folded out to be used a loo-seat.

Much better than Andrex ones, they are thick and soft. They also only cost 40p a pack so are really good value. The best bit though is that they have a really strong apple smell to them, which is useful for 'special' occasions!

  • Pampers Easy-up Pants

These are called 'special car pants' or 'special sleep pants' in our house. I won't let them be referred to as a nappy, they are pants. We use them on two occasions: long-distance travel or at night-time. Never during the day!

I have never used a pull-up during the day (unless on a journey) and wouldn't recommend it. In my personal opinion (which anyone is perfectly entitled to ignore), little ones need to feel that they have wet to know the results of what's just happened. I can still picture The Boy's face on the first two days of potty training, when he wet for the first few times. Complete bafflement as to why he was wet, and then gradual realisation of why.

… at home. I know! Trust me, after four days I was rocking with cabin-fever, but I truly believe that me staying in for a week and being obsessed paying complete attention to his toileting signals, and always being near a potty/toilet helped him to train so quickly. However, I also think that the fact that we sat The Boy on the potty at every nappy change for months beforehand helped. When the time came, he knew what to do with it.

Within a month, he was using the toilet. I feel it's absolute nonsense that you have to retrain them to use a toilet if you've used a potty. Maybe we were just lucky, but he just used it. He switches between the two, but now takes himself to the toilet. He positions his step, stands on it, pulls his trousers and pants down, sits on, goes, wipes, climbs down, pulls his pants and trousers up, gets down from the step, repositions it, climbs up and washes his hands. I just need to dry them for him because he can't manage!

  • Chocolate and frappucinos

'nuff said!

 I am not professing to be the font of all knowledge here and I don't intend to offend anyone or make them anxious. One of the best tips I read that if you are not ready, then don't attempt it because you will hinder your child's progression. I also believe that once you start, you can't go back because it just confuses them. I was lucky to have the summer holidays to train him, and he was pretty much done within a fortnight, although we still had the odd accident for a few weeks after. It's now two months on, and he is amazing. We have had one accident in the past few weeks, which I think is pretty good going. We both worked really hard, and as a result we got there.

Good luck to all those going potty!

Hallowe'en: Devil's Cakes

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When the lovely Jenny from Mummy Mishaps announced that her next 'I Love Cake' linky was going to be cakes for Hallowe'en I started to have a think. The toddler group that we belong to is having a Hallowe'en party and I'll need to take a plate of party food along so I decided to kill two birds with one stone: practise my cakes for the party and link up to 'I Love Cake' at the same time.

I decided on Red Velvet cupcakes. When I was looking for recipes I was intrigued by a couple of things. First of all, it's not just a sponge with red colouring in it. The colouring is achieved through mixing red food colouring with cocoa powder, and then added to the initial wet ingredients. I thought vinegar was a weird thing to put in but according to the never-wrong Wikipedia: "the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk tends to better reveal the red anthocyanin in the cocoa". That's interesting thought I! Then I read on further and discovered that Devil's Food cake (a type of chocolate cake) and Red Velvet cakes often get mixed up in recipe books.

Perfect! I'm making me some Devil's Cakes!

Ingredients:

  • 60g room temperature butter
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 10g cocoa powder
  • 20ml red food colouring
  • 20ml black food colouring
  • 1½tsp vanilla extract
  • 120ml buttermilk
  • 150g plain flour
  • ½tsp salt
  • ½tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1½tsp of white wine vinegar
  • chocolate spread
  • strawberry jam
  • milk chocolate
  • orange & black vermicelli

1. Cream butter and sugar, then add the egg and mix together.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla essence to make a thick, dark paste.

3. Add to the butter mix and stir in thoroughly.

4. Add half the buttermilk and beat. Then add half the flour and mix in. Repeat until all is used.

5. This is a really cool science bit: add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Watch it fizz! Beat well until really smooth.

6. Put a spoonful of cake mixture into the cases, enough to cover the base. Place a small amount of chocolate spread in the centre of each one, and then pour another spoonful of mixture on top; enough to fill two-thirds of the case.

(As I had spare mixture from the 12 that it's supposed to make, I wanted to see what it would like as a black cake. I added a further 20ml of black food colouring (Asda sells it) and put jam in the middle instead of chocolate spread)

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a pre-heated oven (170°C).

8. Melt some milk chocolate in a bain marie and pour into the centre of the cake. Smooth over to cover the top and then sprinkle some vermicelli on the top.

9. ENJOY!

—

Pop over and see the other entries into 'I Love Cake': The Hallowe'en Edition using this widget thing below. The linky will be open from Saturday 15th October and will close at the end of the witching hour (ie. Midnight) on Halloween itself Monday 31st October.

I Love Cake
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