All posts by learnermother

On getting back to normal!

Family, LearnerMother,

So – the minute i allow myself to relax in the knowledge that life is running smoothly, it all goes tits up.

The kids had brilliant parents evenings, the surprise trip to Legoland is all planned and booked, the 3yo has a sleepover with his Nanny while the big ones have their friends staying over tonight. AND I have negotiated a free Saturday to go to Mostly Women Doing Digital in Swansea.

Looking good, huh?

Well. Now there is snow – SNOW – forecast for Monday at Legoland. But that’s fine, we can cope with that, I think to myself – I will just fire up the cold/wet weather project plan.*

Then I get a call from my Mum. The 3 yo has projectile vomited. Ok, we can work with this. I’ll drive to Mums’s and stay there with him, in the (probably vain) hope that he doesn’t pass it on to the bigger ones, plus sleepover friends. I’m a bit gutted as I was actually quite looking forward to spending some time with them all – but still, there’ll be another time.

So I’m driving up to Mums’s when the car starts juddering, like proper, bone shaking juddering. Oh, I think. Flat tyre maybe? I’ll get off the motorway, pull in and check it out. But as I slow down on the slip road, the juddering stops and for a few relieved minutes, I think maybe the motorway surface was just more bumpy than I’d remembered. Then the burning smell starts. And every time I go above 50, we are back to juddering. And smelling of burning. FFS.

Hmmmm. A buggered car, a vomiting child, no trip to Swansea, and a snowy and probably vomity Legoland. Life’s back to normal!

*yes, there is one. I am that sad.

On the MAD Blog Awards

LearnerBlogger, , ,

Just over a week has gone by since I decided to finally stop thinking about blogging and to start doing it. I’ve probably had a fairly typical first week in that I’ve changed my blog theme about 10 times, been caught swearing at wordpress by my kids about 100 times, and – of course – have become obsessed by the stats button. I’m sure with time, the obsession will fade – to be fair, you can only refresh the page so many times before you realise that your 15 page views 3 days ago is as good as this week’s going to get. And probably 14 of those were my mother checking up on me.

But it’s not only my own blog that has been occupying my time. Previously, I’ve dipped in and out of parent blogs via twitter – most often when I’ve had a crap day feeling like a crap Mum and I need to know that I am not alone in not having all the answers. But this week I’ve been doing some more active research – what makes a good parent blog? What makes people read and go back for more? What are the pitfalls? Should I identify my kids and what if people I know start reading? This last one particularly has been topical on Purplemum’s blog this week – and it’s something that’s occupying my mind quite a lot – a post for another day, perhaps.

Well, you know what my research has shown me? That there’s a shedload of good stuff out there. Like, really, really good. There’s funny stuff, useful stuff, what the feck can I do with them today stuff,  techie stuff , and stuff that is both heartrending and excellent – the list is endless. It’s like a massive lucky dip of parenting help, on hand whenever you need it.

And that’s why I’m going to be voting in the MAD Blog Awards. I figure that since I take advantage of the lucky dip, the least I can do is cast my vote…I’m off to do it RIGHT NOW!  Well, right after changing my theme again, and possibly checking my stats….