Thames Valley Mums Blog

Get lost in music

Until recently, I’ve been stuck in a musical rut.

I want something new to listen to and I don’t want to be permanently plugged into Radio 1 to discover it. Their inane chatter in between tracks is too off-putting when I’m working.

So, I was chuffed to bits when I recently discovered Last FM. You type in a band you like and it creates a non-stop-music radio station for you - featuring your chosen band and artists of a similar genre.

It’s fab for discovering new music - and rediscovering old favourites. My current fave is Polly Scattergood (no, I’d never heard of her either). Check out her very beautiful Poem Song and Other too Endless. You can even create your own playlists - and send the URL to your mates. Please share your discoveries with me!

Lost and found

Sometimes you don't know you have given something up until you have found it again.

Perhaps lost is a better word. Left behind. Somewhere between the marketing lunches and toys on the carpet.

If I squint I can just make out bits of it -- A baby born. Patting backs and encouraging burps at 2 am. Husband sleeping soundly in another room. A sister born before the first can talk. Is that another?

A long hospital stay. Cotton between my brain. I just want to take a nap. A long one.

Oh look. Here it is. A family with three beautiful children. And they still want to hold my hand. Hooray!

Photo credit: Robert Crum

Sorry baby bird

When my son woke up today I wanted to tell him that  the baby bird was saved by its watchful parents and was likely being fed and kept safe in the bushes.  

What I didn’t want to tell him was when I awoke the baby bird was still where we had left him, in the middle of the lawn, but sadly, was no longer.  I crept outside in the early morning and moved the bird’s remains to a more appropriate place in the garden and kept quiet about the whole thing.

I dread the children finding a baby bird.  The only luck I’ve had with baby birds is bad. 

There hasn’t been one successful scenario of a baby bird being found just under it’s nest allowing me to gently return the baby bird to its family with glowing smiles all around.   

The standards are slipping

I could feel the murmur making its way down the reception queue this morning, the more keen mums reminding the late comers.

"Don't forget, cake sale day today."

Ah, cake sale day. The day we all dash down to Waitrose and spend at least £6 on essentials like cake mix, butter, icing sugar, smarties, and other decorations. Then we go home and spend half the morning slaving in the kitchen baking fairy cakes. We spend the other half of the morning washing up. The afternoon is filled with the task of decorating the 24 fairy cakes that will sell for 25p each, bringing in a grand total of £6 to the PTA coffers...

I decided this morning I really didn't have time for all that, and went to Tesco and bought 16 donuts (on sale).

As I said, the standards are slipping...

This post was written by Susanna, a Thames Valley Mums founding contributor. You can read more at her blog, A Modern Mother.

Terrible Twos

Definition:

To hit the terrible twos: to hit head against wall because toddler decide to not cooperate in crucial moments such as when crossing the road. To scream at the top of one's head because one's child decide to play hide and seek in clothes rails in shops and won't listen when being called once, twice, twenty times. To loose one's marbles when toddler laughs at one's face when being told off.

It can go further than this I promise you!

Top five tips for enjoying Disneyland Paris

Ella and I had a great time at Euro Disney this Tuesday and Wednesday. The weather was amazing, the queues bearable (the longest we ever had to wait for a ride was 30 minutes) and the atmosphere happy and upbeat.

I had steeled myself for an onslaught of unbridled consumerism and in-your-face American-style Disney overkill but was pleasantly suprised.

I'm not denying that food and merchandise were expensive, they were. But the French are, well,  French and so their Disney-ness was expressed with a smile and a 'Hello Princess' (for Ella, not me). They were charmingly free of faux enthusiasm, tending towards friendliness instead. A refreshing experience for any visitor to Paris.

Let the rainy day activites commence

Now that summer is over <sob> I'm looking for something, anything, to help occupy the girls' time.

Someone must be listening because I opened my email and Snapfish asked if my seven-year-old daughter would like to have a go at making a photo book. Yes, please.

So I loaded up her photos (she got a digital camera for Christmas) and she pretty much figured out the programme herself (drag and drop). She even wrote her own captions and came up with some pretty cool backgrounds.

Frantic Wednesday...

It was all go in the Tawny household last Wednesday. K had a cricket match and had to be there at 6.00pm. Not a problem I hear you cry! However, I don’t finish work until 5.00, so here is a breakdown of the breakneck pace of the hour between 5 and 6 last night……

5.00pm - Sign off computer, close down, send text to child minder asking her to have K ready at 5.15, shout bye to boss and run out of door.

5.05pm – Sit at roundabout wondering where all the bloody traffic has appeared from it is half term for heavens sake.

5.12pm - Sit at traffic lights still wondering why every tom, dick and harry is on the flipping road!