Let's just completely ignore that fact that it's Wednesday shall we and instead let's just head back into Ladybird world for a bit? Far nicer. This week we're heading back to the Ladybird Leader series (number 737). There were a staggering 38 titles in this series in total and as I mentioned when I wrote about the water book last year, it was an incredibly wide ranging series. Sounds was book number 17 in this series and seems to touch a fair bit on things that are also covered in some of the Junior Science series and also the Your Body book from series ... read more
New Titles from The Wonderful World of Simon Abbott
The children and I are incredibly fortunate that we get to review lots of fantastic children's books together. To date though the majority of these are fiction books so I was particularly interested when TickTock (the children's imprint of Octopus Books) asked us to review some of their new non-fiction titles. The Wonderful World of Simon Abbott series is designed to put the fun back into children's non-fiction by creating a bright and colourful witty presentation of all the information they could ever want to know about their favourite subjects, aimed at 5-7 year olds. The two latest titles ... read more
A first cinema trip
What was the first film that you saw at the cinema? I've probably seen hundreds there over the years, but that first trip always sticks with you. I have absolutely no idea at all when people normally take their kids to the cinema for the first time. I remember going to the old Odeon in Rotherham with my Mum to see the Jungle Book and being strangely scared by the toilets there, but I can't remember how old I was at the time. I do remember the trip though and can still cast my mind back to the amazement I felt at how big the screen was compared to our little telly at home. Photo taken ... read more
Enjoying a Winter Little Adventure
Do you realise just how lucky we were last week? It was half term here and we actually had a day where it didn't rain. And for a little while the sun came out too! I know I do bang on a lot about how "there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing" but this winter has challenged even my Yorkshire optimism about the weather. I've never seen so much rain! All is well when children can just pull on a pair of wellies and head outside regardless, but it's a bit more challenging when you have a 17 month old who seems to think puddles are for sitting in ... read more
Save the Children Ending Newborn Deaths Campaign
When at the Save the Children Bloggers Conference earlier this month there was one particular star guest that I was very keen to hear from - Gemma Raby, one of the midwives from the fantastic Channel 4 series One Born Every Minute. Gemma has been working with Save the Children for a while now and as part of this work last year went out to Liberia to see the work done by midwives there and the difference that Save the Children was making for babies and their mothers. I have two children. Both born in the hospitals of my choice and both times I was given excellent care by the NHS and their ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Apologies for the little holiday that Ladybird Tuesday took the last couple of weeks. A bit of "blog housekeeping" took over all my assigned laptop time in both weeks and short of staying up until the wee hours everyday something had to give and sadly that was Ladybird Tuesday. This week though we're back and I'm restarting with a bit of a classic from the "well-loved tales" series (606D for those of you keeping notes!): Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Now, I'm pretty sure that there can't be anyone reading this who doesn't know the story of the three ... read more
Garden preparations
Recently I've been doing a lot of looking back at old blog posts and it's fascinating to see how much has changed over the years. Before I was doing as much commercial work here on Being Mrs C I really did use the blog to capture so much more of what was going on day to day - both in terms of our lives and also what we were doing with the house and garden - and I really miss that I'm not doing so much of that any more. It's always been fascinating to look back and see what I was planing or doing with the kids a year or more ago and I fear that in future years when I look back ... read more
Bigjigs Weaving Loom
I'm always excited when a new Play Patrol package arrives from Bigjigs and the latest one looked like it was perfect. For Little Miss C they'd included their Weaving Loom and the French Knitting kit. With a crafty mum it looked like these couldn't have been chosen better as LMC is always wanting to do knitting, sewing or just "making with wool" with me. We started off with the Weaving Loom as I thought that the larger size would make it a bit easier for her to use - after all she is only three and a half and the loom has a recommended age of 5+ on it. To see how to use ... read more
I Want My Mummy! – Tracey Corderoy and Alison Edgson
With Mother's Day fast approaching it's the time of year when publishers bring out a variety of mummy related books. Many of these are along the theme of how wonderful mums are (and there's certainly nothing wrong with that) but what I particularly liked about I Want My Mummy! is that it seems to go a bit further. Arthur (a toddler mouse - if that's the correct terminology!) is going to spend the day at his Granny's house. He's not spent a whole day apart from his mummy before so he's understandably a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. Dressed ... read more
Dino-Mummy – Mark Sperring and Sam Lloyd
As I've mentioned before there seems to be a bit of a thing about books featuring dinosaurs at the moment and Dino-Mummy clearly fits into that category too. Dino-Mummy is actually a follow on from Dino-Baby, which somehow passed me by when it was released, and it sets out to show just how amazing us mums are and how we all have multi-tasking down as a fine art! As I know only too well life in a house with two small children (an older girl and a baby boy) is pretty chaotic and it seems that Dino-Mummy has exactly the same challenges as I do. She amazingly keeps on top of ... read more