Do I need retail therapy?

Let me start by saying that I am not a shoe person. Carrie Bradshaw, Imelda Marcos, this is not me. But becoming a mother has awakened me to the unique pleasure of a footwear purchase. Not mine, you understand, but those of my Darling Little Boy. Watching him target and splash every puddle along the road as we left the shop with his gorgeous new snow boots this winter made my heart sing, I’m not ashamed to admit.

Don't forget the kitchen sink.....

I don’t know about you, but getting ready to go to nursery is my favourite part of the week. So stress and tension free. Never a cross word about getting dressed. Always a healthy hearty breakfast consumed with a smile. And out the door with plenty of time to spare we skip.

Nah. Me neither. But recently, there’s been an interesting development on the hell-that-is-Tuesday-and-Friday-mornings front. My darling little boy has developed a liking for taking things with him to nursery. I think the first ever thing he took was a toy. And it got taken up as an objet d’art in Show and Tell.

It's a tough market

This is the second post I have written which starts with me noticing something at nursery and ends in DISASTER.

This time it was a flyer for a tots table top sale. On pretty pink paper, purple writing encouraged me to ‘Have that clear out’. ‘make some money’. ‘It’s for charity’ ‘local’ ‘there will be cake’.

It lured me in. As I put that flyer in my pocket, yet again I felt clever, observant, already very organised, frugal and waste-not-like.

Once more, I confidently sent an email round my friends, this time telling them that I was planning to hire a table at said event, should any of them wish to join me.

REVIEW: The Tickle Book

There are loads of books I remember from childhood and love with a passion. One of these, I’m pleased to report, my three-year-old boy shares an appreciation for. It’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Another, I was gutted when he rejected – namely, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch. 

For a while, I was throwing my heart and soul into bedtime books, giving it the full RSC treatment with things like Grufallo and Room on a Broom by Julia Donaldson. Until he told me he didn’t like them anymore because they were too scary. 

I never quite know what he is going to go for, and have even taken to playing it cool about books so as not to frighten him off. He’s shown me that he likes interactivity....flaps and tabs are always a winner. And You Chose is a very inventively interactive book. We love it. 

How do I look?

Recently, my husband and I dined out, just the two of us. Sadly, we were at a well-known fast food chain grabbing a bite to eat after a hospital appointment. I wore glasses on my make-up free face and as I chomped on a burger I mused: “I’d never let my friends see me like this”. 

He quipped back: “I’ve seen you looking worse”. 

It is true. He has. And it is true that I think about how I look when I see my friends...I covert their chunky bracelets and ankle boots and I am chuffed to bits when they like my new bag. 

Then, the other night, I was off out with the girls, and that old thing came over me – the frantic wardrobe scavenging. Hot, bothered and half made up, I searched in vain for the perfect outfit. The one that made me look very thin and right on trend. The one that didn’t exist. 

Happiness

It’s a funny old thing, writing about stuff. It’s a way of trying to order and record things, and perhaps that is why I find myself being drawn to lists. And in the blogging world, I have discovered that this is not unusual. Over at Kate Takes 5, there’s a whole world of amazing lists, and I have decided to join in her listography on the top five things that make me happy.

I find I have gone for the big stuff, rather than ‘bright sunshine on a cold day’ or ‘carrot cake’. Intense or unimaginative? I make no apologies. Here they are in no particular order:

1. My little boy. The smell of his hair and the heavy weight of him falling asleep on me. And every word he says. Even “I’m ready for you to wipe my bottom” and “Daddy is my favourite”.

BOOK REVIEW: Adrian Mole The Prostrate Years

No other book makes me laugh like an Adrian Mole diary. This one had me snorting embarrassingly in a quiet waiting room in a way that might make the mother of all embarrassing mothers – Pauline Mole herself – blush.

The secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and 3/4 was recently voted Britain’s funniest book, but I’ve enjoyed the subsequent diaries just as much, and, in Adrian, Sue Townsend has cultivated the perfect everyman through whom she can deliver withering satire on every social issue and lifestyle trend in modern Britain.

From the smoking ban to laminate flooring, the workings of the NHS and the MPs expenses scandal, wittingly or not, Adrian chronicles the farcical elements of modern life to exquisite comic effect.