Kids Rooms website Review

Life time pink garden bed href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8lsV0G7mlgWTqFZodN6nbiStp7cawIHeNkPsYVguJeVaP-Pni-UQufm-XIQ9SXpDSE-gRkCGFQRa4v-s_pWJCt9TAO10Bpso8-VNFP_Duz-TmELUxLtJM_QYknL0keM_BaEfMYg/s1600-h/tree+house+bed">
Tree house bed

Verada Playroom furniture

Rainbow PR has asked me to take a look at www.kidsrooms.co.uk in order to introduce it to my readers.
At first glance, it seemed just another expensive children's furniture company from which I'd love to buy but is just way out of my budget. So I clicked the link to the discounted products, something I often do on these types of sites, expecting to find a few crappy lamp shades etc, but there were loads of much more affordable items! This warmed me to them instantly, and I continued to browse :-)

The furniture on offer isn't only pretty unique, but is marketed upon its durability and lasting qualities, which as mummy to a "spirited" Boy, would definitely be something I'd look for. Above, I've put on a few pictures of younger boy & girl's bedroom, aren't they gorgeous?? I'd never seen anything like that tree house bed, usually boys don't get the exciting choices, it's all pretty and cool stuff for girls and boring things for boys, so that really impressed me.

They also do some very grown-up, funky and stylish bedrooms for teens, I think you'd find something for even the fussiest teenager. What I liked about all the bedroom sections (boy, girl, teen) there were many unisex styles, it's not all pink for girls and blue for boys, which is so dull.

The site also offers a range of nursery, playroom and waiting room (yes I wondered too, you know those huge activity centres in clinic waiting rooms? It's those) furniture. Pictured above is a playroom set, which is actually made by a fair trade company, so you don't need to feel guilty about your extravagant purchases :-). The toys are also just lush. We will soon be decorating Boy's room in a pirate theme, which they do, so I may well be placing an order for some swash-buckling duvet covers!

While you're here, please vote for Faye & Liam to win their dream wedding. It's a sad day, as today would have been their wedding day, so please help them win it back. Read more on the story here.

Books

I was given the opportunity to review some Walker books recently with Boy, and I jumped at the chance, as "We're going on a bear hunt", another Walker book, is one of my favourites, and a modern classic. When "Yummy" by Lucy Cousins arrived in the post, I was bouncing. A gorgeous, hardback book of classic fairy tales, with a Lucy twist. When I was pregnant, Boy and I got a few books from the library about new babies, and by far his favourite was by Lucy Cousins. The thing he liked the most were the wacky, eye-popping, bright illustrations, which are the earmark of "Yummy".

I had a flick through before Boy got home, and was delighted to find some stories I'd not heard since my mother read them to me from a ladybird book, alongside more popular favourites such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Shall I shamefully admit that I read the whole thing before tiny hands even got near it?? My favourite aspect of the book was....hee hee, the sheer level of violence. Fairy tales in their original form are often really quite violent, and I love that Lucy Cousins has decided that children should be gently introduced to the fact that the world isn't always kind. It's much easier to learn in a story than a few years down the line out in the real world. Children shouldn't be patronized, as much as innocence is precious. I found it almost comical how shocking some stories are! I don't remember batting an eyelid as a child though. If you have a particularly sensitive child, perhaps this is more of a daytime than bedtime book.

I must admit that we don't make a habit of reading books with paper pages yet in our house, Boy just isn't ready at (a very young) twenty months. Not only do I fear for the books general welfare, (and Yummy is a stunning book, the kind you keep for the grandkids), but he just hasn't got the attention span for me to read what is inevitably much more text per page than a board book, and an altogether longer story. We just about manage the "That's not my..." books, and that's only because I've memorised them and blurt out the text before chubby hands insist on turning the page.

But with "Yummy", there were at least two very short stories that I was actually able to read to Boy! And without much coaxing at all. As you can see from the photo, he was enamored with the pictures. I can't wait until he's a bit older, this is sure to become a bedtime favourite. Well, for me anyway.

While I'm blogging about books, the glowing Amy from and1moremeans4 passed a book meme onto me recently, so I'll give you a two for one dealy. This went round facebook recently too, but the page number was different. Here are the game rules!



1. Collect the book that you have most handy.
2. Turn to page 161.
3. Find the 5Th complete sentence.
4. Site the sentence on your blog.
5. Pass it on to 5 other bloggers.

So here it is, warts and all: try expressing milk from one breast while you feed from the other.
Guess what I'm reading?? Check out my previous review of it.

And I'd like to know what the following bloggers are reading, apologies if you've already had it:

Slugs on the Refridgerator
Josie from Sleep is for the Weak
Cave Mother
Slightly South of Sanity
Natalie from Soph4Soph

Also, while you're reading check out this post for info on how to do your good deed for the day, boost your good karma, and VOTE for my friends Faye & Liam to win their dream wedding!!

Review of an amazing breastfeeding book

The Food of Love; your formula to successful breastfeeding, by Kate Evans

I finished this 207 page book in less than two days. It's so easy to read, I imagine you could have a fairly successful attempt at digesting it even in those hazy newborn days (sorry, weeks...), when you can't even hold a real conversation due to sleep deprivation! And, as the book itself sates on the second page, if you really are in that zombie-like state and can't possibly bear a book, and just need help with breastfeeding, there are loads of wackily drawn cartoons and diagrams to look at and to make you laugh, while informing you and banishing your fears/guilt at the same time. How did Kate Evans manage to do that?? Great!

The forward to the book is written by a midwife, who, as well as declaring the book “essential” reading for the 21st century mum, write that she wishes “the NHS could afford to hand out copies” to new parents,which sounded very promising to me. I wasn't disappointed!

The book covers topics such as how emotionally/psychologically we might (and do) feel uncomfortable with breastfeeding, and how it seems so silly to other cultures to have these hang-ups, all stemming from the sexualisation of breasts, which, let's be frank, are only really there for one job, and this is it. The cartoons are just great, and often left me thinking, “yes, that's how it should be!” while giggling at the same time. It has all the technical stuff: why breast is best, but delivered in a light-hearted way, that wouldn't make you feel like a terrible person if you read the book and then decided not to breastfeed. (Or couldn't for whatever reason). But if you did run into problems, and thought you couldn't feed, the book is PACKED with simplified trouble shooting for things like latching baby on, or how to get rid of blocked ducts, with funny and very clear illustrations, which at 3am is a lot more useful than the thought of your midwife visiting “first thing” or even the pain of calling a 24hr helpline (which, although comforting, doesn't show you visually how to do it).

So the book is very practical, as well a tickling your funny bone at every turn. It has some of the author's (and her family's) experiences, which helps with the concept that she's a real person, and has really done it (she boasts literally having had ALL the ailments in the problems section....and going on to extended breastfeeding!). And I love reading anecdotes in books like this, maybe I'm just nosy. There is advice on multiple births and special care babies: how feeding is different but still possible (and perhaps even more vital). For very new mums, it gives some great ideas about what to “do” when you're stuck in a chair breastfeeding (again). Yes, newborns feed all the time. All of it. Really. Her ideas are great (and funny), and I especially like her extra ideas for second (or third or more) time mums, who are also entertaining a toddler, that is, while feeding. Women are great.

One of the most lovely and comforting things I found about the book is comparing our modern babies to those they evolved from many moons ago. (Check out Cave Mother's blog for more of a day-to-day idea). It discusses how, to survive, babies needed to be near mothers, but that mothers had massive support from the community way back when: we are a tribal species after all. So yes, our babies may have been demanding to be held /fed all the time, but our older children would be off playing with the other children in the tribe, so you wouldn't have to entertain them, your sisters/aunties/mother would be doing all your chores, and your mother/older women in the tribe/teenage girls would coo over the baby, and swaddle and carry her when you needed a rest. It explains that for these purposes, all we have is cbeebies, take away food, a bouncy chair and internet chat rooms..... doesn't look great does it?

The book then helpfully points out, in my favourite cartoon of the lot, that babies in general (and I found great comfort in this, as it applied to my little boy very heartily, and no-one believed me/thought I was nuts or exaggerating) do not appreciate non-human company (i.e. that of bouncy chairs/mobiles/tv), but this is for evolutionary purposes. The cartoon depicts a happily cooing baby, content with its own company for hours on end. Then a tiger came and ate him all up! The second picture depicts another baby who screamed “as if a tiger was about to attack him” every time his mother put him down (is this sounding at all familiar??? This was my life for about six months!). The mother gives up and puts the baby in a sling and carries him everywhere. The tiger, skulking in the background, thinks; “drat, foiled again.” The line reads: “guess which baby yours is descended from?”. This really made me feel better! Babies aren't supposed to want to sleep alone in a cot or be happy in a door bouncer while you take a shower or cook tea! It was ok that my baby needed me 24/7, because that's what millions of years had taught him to do! I wasn't going nuts, and I didn't have the most difficult baby on the planet, I had a very clever baby. A normal baby. This was my favourite part of the whole book. :-)

The book gives lots of information about various aspects of attachment parenting. (For a more substantial, but defiantly less entertaining look at attachment parenting, read THIS.) It gives very easy to decipher diagrams of how to wear (and breastfeed in) slings, and the benefits of babywearing, and the benefits of pushchairs too! She really gives every option. There is advice on safe co-sleeping,and the (very funny) pros and cons to sharing a bed with your baby. (Pro: daddy and baby look so cute together! Con: baby has razorblades for toenails.) But the lovely thing about all this advice on attachment parenting is that Kate Evans explicitly says, throughout the book, that your baby isn't like the babies in the books, so you know her best, and should do what is right for your family, no matter who it goes against (the midwife, your mother, this book...). As a new mum, I would have loved to have “permission” to do things my way (something I'm so excited about this time round) as I just didn't have the confidence to ignore the midwife, or my mum, or the books! And since none of them agreed with one another, it was a very confusing time indeed....

There is also some very helpful advice and information about the baby blues and post natal depression. Not everyone is overjoyed when they hold their newborn in their arms. But that's ok. That's the message, and a very comforting one it is (and would have been, 18 months ago) to me. The book covers breastfeeding in public, something many mums dread while pregnant, and there's even a section about your looks:how you will be different (regardless of whether or not your breastfeed) and how to, in time, be ok with that. Information on how hubby may feel about feeding, and even how breastfeeding can affect sex (even contraceptively!) and when to stop breastfeeding, how to combine with formula, and how to deal with feeding a much older child, if you wish (like the World Health Organisation recommends, two or more years), all these topics you may not even have thought of, but may well crop into your lives now you have a baby, are covered,and in a non-preaching, humorous way.

All in all, every word in this book was as fun,entertaining and easy to read as a candy-floss chick-lit novel, but paced with vital information, and very useful advice and points of view.

The blurb on the back reads thus:
This book will tell you all the information you need to breastfeed successfully:
clear pictures and instructions for your first feeds
how to breastfeed in your sleep
advice on beating the baby blues
what dads can do to help
the art of feeding your baby in public
a guide to breastfeeding complaints
what to do if you return to work
the Mama Sutra- advanced breastfeeding positions
full-term feeding for the fainthearted.
PLUS it's full of fantastically funny illustrations and will stay open at the page so you can read it when both hands are full.
This book will not tell you how to look after your baby. Your baby is utterly unique, and not the same as any of those in the baby books.
Does it sound good? It does exactly what it says on the tin. Read it!

Harry Potter!

Last night, my sister kindly took on childcare duties, while HID and I went n a date to see the new Harry Potter film. I am a huge, huge fan of the books, and also love the films (I'm not one of those that moans about the films being adapted too much from the books, I enjoy the films in their own right, and see them as an extension of the Harry experience!). HID loves the films, but hasn't read the books. We always make a point of seeing the Harry films as soon as they come out, there is nothing quite so fun as being in amongst all the hard-core fans, who not only laugh without reserve, but clap and you may even spot a few pointed hats amongst the dress code :-)

The frantic "shushing" that occurred as the lights dimmed only reinforced the audience's excitement, like me, their hearts were pounding with expectation!

I do not want to give too much away to those who haven't read the book but wish to see the film (or read the book ages ago, and can't remember every detail), but suffice to say, I REALLY enjoyed the film! Yes, it is dark and violent this time, but it was also by far the funniest of the Harry films. I don't often laugh aloud at films, but I was heartily guffawing along with everyone else. Some comedy highlights were: when Harry drinks the "Felix" and his confidence causes him to be more cheeky than necessary to Slughorn, classic! And at Slughorn's dinner party, Harry standing to greet Ginny, cringe, and I couldn't watch for crying with laughter as Hermione's love interest seductively licked chocolate sauce off his fingers....eeeew! And of course, Ron was a laugh a minute, as always. Loving Rupert!

As a fan of the stories, I would have liked a few more of the Riddle memories, I am a little dubious about how they will continue into the next film as Harry doesn't seem to"know" enough. I am very glad they left out the funeral scene, I'm not sure my hormonal emotions could have coped! I did enjoy the sort of "wand salute" that wasn't in the book, a touching addition.

Harry and Ginny's first kiss was gorgeous. If was so intimately done, I felt an intruder on their lives and momentarily looked away from the screen.

What we did remark as we left was: it wasn't long enough! Well, we would have liked more. More story, more action, more of Mr & Mrs Weasley, of Hagrid. It has made me very excited about the Deathly Hallows! If you're a fan, it does not disappoint.