Jul 2 2015

Take some downtime with online bingo

Posted on July 2, 2015 by admin

A mum’s day is always a busy one, no matter what age her children are. The only time the pressure is really off is when the kids have flown the nest – or at least headed off to uni for the term! But for the majority of mums with kids at home, their days are packed and busy ones.

It doesn’t make too much difference whether you’re a stay-at-home mum or one who goes out to work – there’s always something useful you can be doing at any time of the day, stretching all the way until you decide to quit for the day and go to bed.

SOURCE: Harry Potts There’s always something a mum has to do!

However, there’s a problem with being on the go all the time – you run out of steam and you run out of energy. When that happens, you’re not always such a great mum to be around! Thankfully, there’s an easy solution. You take a few minutes of downtime during the day to just relax and be yourself. And this doesn’t mean heading out for a massage, you can wind down wherever you are with a few games of bingo online.

Bingo has always been popular but it used to involve taking time out to go to the local bingo hall. Now you can play online at sites such as 32red bingo or 123 Bingo any time of day or night, for any length of time - click here for more info. The venue for bingo may have changed but the fun of playing is just the same and there’s a social side to the games, too, which can be great if you want to let off some steam about your children or your partner while you’re there. That’s because all the sites have chat rooms, which are connected to the games that you’re playing. So while you watch the progress of your bingo cards, you can also have a gossip.

The stakes have always been low with bingo games, but now as there are so many sites to play at, there’s a lot of free cash for players to take advantage of when they join a site. At 32red bingo, for example, there’s a £10 bonus when you first register an account, without you needing to put in a penny of your own money.

Once registered, as well as the paying games, there are plenty of free games included on the bingo site schedules, so there’s always the option of playing for free when you don’t want to spend any money at all. Even the free games have small prizes attached to them, so there’s still a thrill with any win.

For most players, though, they’re not playing bingo with the expectation of winning. It’s more about being able to focus on a fun and easy game for a few minutes, and maybe have a chat, so that you can have a break from the routine events of the day.

May 11 2015

Book Review: 7 Secrets of Raising Girls Every Parent Must Know by Judy Reith

Posted on May 11, 2015 by admin

Heidi is now a walking, giggling and eye-fluttering one-year-old. We’ve successfully supported her through that first chaotic year of nightfeeds, early illnesses and weaning, and now she’s a whole year closer to womanhood. We’re under no illusion this year she’ll show us a bit of sass as her little personality is finally revealed, and (hopefully) a few tufts of hair to bunch and plait.

Until now, I’d never given much thought to the fact she’s a girl. My three-year-old, Dexter, is an inquisitive, polite and often mischievous little dude, and given there’s been no dramatic shift in our parenting style towards Heidi, I just assumed she would grow to become his twin, albeit with a healthy dose of “girl” thrown in.

Over the last few weeks however, I’ve witnessed nuisances in their mannerisms, treatment of one another and their personalities. At their recent joint birthday party, Dexter was very protective of Heidi, wrapping his arms around her and guiding her through a room of adult legs and looming faces. Yet a day later he’s back to snatching her toys and pushing her to the floor. He will fetch her a bottle or bear-hug her when he’s gone too far, but often there’s a cacophony of tears, shrieking and stomping as they try (in their own ways) to outdo each other to get our attention.

When the fire-fighting is done and they’re playing peacefully together with a pile of Micro Machines between them, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a significant degree of heterogeneity between them. She is in awe of her big brother, and more sensitive, resilient and nurturing than he. He’s more introspective, independent and willful than she. I have to acknowledge their sex is a major contributing factor to the ever-apparent differences between them.

Wanting to unpack this idea further, I recently read 7 Secrets of Raising Girls Every Parent Must Know by Judy Reith (Summersdale Publishing ISBN 9781849536714). I was hoping to gain an insight into what our lives will look like as Heidi’s evolves. For the first time ever, I’m not sure whether it delivered or not.

When my mum died after a long fight with Alzheimer’s, grief threw me an opportunity to consider her legacy to me, and my three daughters. A friend said to me, “We all leave our shadow behind”. So what is my mum’s shadow? What will mine be to my darling daughters so they have what they need to thrive in the modern world? Judy Reith

Don’t get me wrong, the book was an enjoyable read. She imparts her 7 virtues with finesse, offering case studies, inspirational quotes and personal anecdotes. It’s set over 7 chapters and attempts to confront, head on, the cultural, sociological and physiological challenges of raising a daughter as she hurtles headfirst into the world; from her first tentative steps, to a world of lipstick and high heels. She deals with all the usual themes that cause 21st century parents headaches such as self-esteem, bitchiness, sex and social media in an undeniably warm, funny and inclusive style.

The book is well written in so far as no singular opinion is offered, rather Reith reminds us we know our daughters best and are all equipped with an innate ability to parent them. Instead it’s packed with ideas and suggestions on how to re-balance the busy lives we lead and reflect on the simple pleasures (and new dynamic) a girl can bring to your family. Reith’s late mother often pops up with practical, no-nonsense advice from the 70s showing how parents throughout the ages have grappled with similar anxieties and have emerged blinking into the sunshine out of the other side.

I was left feeling inspired. Reith gives you plenty to think about that will continually pop up as you go about the daily ritual of parenting. We all have days (or indeed weeks) when we question our parenting - but ultimately we are only answerable to our children. It doesn’t make you feel incompetent, instead, it affirms the things you’re doing right, and inspires you to do other things better.

I’m also a big fan of the additional reading suggestions at the back of the book, and worksheets for the biro-happy parent. With a whole chapter on the delicate relationship between dad and daughter there’s also advice about maintaining and nurturing that most tricky of relationships.

But did it help me understand my daughter better? Maybe not.

But was that her intention? Maybe not.

Moreover, was that what I really wanted? Maybe not.

Instead it gives you so much more. I might not know Heidi better, but I might not ever truly know the inner workings of her! Yet I am feeling more positive about my relationship with her. On those bleak days in the future when I’m called into school and she tells me she hates me for not backing her up in front of her teacher, or she hides herself away for weeks when Mark dumps her for Tracy, I’ll know that, as a woman, and more importantly her mother, I’m better equipped than anyone to steer her through it.

Mar 29 2015

From the mouth of the babe: Marks & Spencer – a Dad’s Survival Guide

Posted on March 29, 2015 by admin

Nope Heidi hasn’t started chattering at 11 months, and Dex is no more comprehensible now than he was at 1.5 years. I’m still “Mummis”, Craig still “Diddy”, and the closest we come to a sentence is some pretty dramatic babbling, pointing at the fridge and bottom lip-wobbling when he’s pleading for his after-dinner chocolate mousse.

No, the babe I speak of in the title for this post is He who helped me make them; chief electrician, spider-catcher and chef here at Casa Mills; the man I agreed to marry when drunk who still hasn’t put a ring on it… Craig.

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You see, I was recently contacted by M&S about a little project they’re doing to coincide with their new M&S Baby section on marksandspencer.com. They want to create a Dad’s Survival Guide full of advice from oft-forgotten dads - those magnificent beasts who somehow manage to make parenting both harder and easier at the same time.

Yet, extracting pearls of wisdom from my man is tough. When not under pressure, this man will provide a running commentary to the most mundane of activities. He’ll talk over Orange is the New Black so you have to watch it again secretly the next day. He’ll decide to ask you your opinion on the Battle for Number 10 when you’re halfway through a blog post. He’ll over-complicate the online food shop and deliberate aloud for ten whole minutes about which sausages to buy the kids for tea. In short, he’s never short of something to moan, joke or jump on his soapbox about.

Yet when asked if he had any parenting advice to offer a fellow dad-to-be, he reacted as though I’d asked him about the intricacies of cytogenetics during the mitotic metaphase. The eyebrows furrowed and he grabbed a nappy and set to work on Heidi to escape the question. When pressed, staring down at the contents of my daughter’s nappy, he muttered “Wrap it up”.

Of course he’s joking, he’s a brilliant daddy. But it’s tough to come up with a nugget of winning advice. Sure, two children in, we know loads more now, than we did then. We know that the only baby socks that stay put are from Baby Gap, we know that we wasted a good twenty quid on a nappy bin before Child 1 came along, we know that an tablet loaded with Flixster is your best bet if your child gets car sick. Yet coming up with something truly… helpful? Not easy.

When he turned to me in bed later that evening, his attempt, on the face of it, was a bit saccharine:

“Never waiver in your love, admiration and respect of the mother of your children” Craig

Yet when he explained it, I began to understand it was one of the most compelling things he’d ever said.

He explained that, especially for dads who work, you can feel a little on the periphery of parenthood. On the weekends, when you get up first with the kids, you’re forever getting caught out by not removing the crust from the kids’ toast, or making up their drinks with slightly the wrong ratio of juice to water. At times, you have to accept that your partner knows the nuisances of parenting that you don’t. The slightest deviation from routine can end up in an epic tantrum.

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You also have to acknowledge that the stay-at-home-mum is one of the least respected jobs in Britain. She’s berated and discriminated against by the government, she can’t pull a sicky and she’s not paid for her work. Craig freely admits that after particularly long and difficult weekends with the children, he is sometimes relieved to get up at 5am and go to work. It’s not that he doesn’t love us all, it’s just that the mess, tears and never-ending wiping of snotty noses and mucky bums, is unrelenting and hard.

He goes on to say that if ever you’re having a crap day at work and silently resenting that mum is at home, mentally revisiting a challenging weekend of parenting brings you back to earth with a thud. You therefore have to forgive your partner when she’s snappy or emotional when you come home. Similarly, if she’s in the middle of cooking dinner and a bottle of wine is half-depleted, there’s no point arguing she should have waited.

Finally, you have to see past the fact she has a stress rash on her cheek, her hair is a longer version of Boris Johnson’s and she’s wearing your favourite t-shirt and it appears to be covered in baby vomit. When the day’s toys are swept into the toy chest, you’ve both eaten, she is showered, and you’re preparing for bed, you’ll remember just how lovely she is.