Michelle Tant

I felt inspired (thanks @BabyMakingMama )to blog about this today. You may or may not know that I have three children. Two boys and a girl, 5, 3 and 6 months respectively. With my eldest son, Jayden, I followed the traditional method of weaning onto solids religiously. I bought a couple of puree books, I recommend Annabel Karmel as her recipes taste delicious if you are going down that route incidentally, and set about introducing my son to the delights of non-mummy-milk foods. I started with baby rice which is pretty tasteless really, mixed up with breastmilk; just an introduction to new texture I suppose. Then on to a new taste every few days, eg a few days of pureed carrots, then apple, then parsnip/squashes, then apple AND carrot, then mashed potato... gradually increasing the lumpiness until FINALLY I dared to give him a piece of food to hold himself. And the fear in the room was palpable. I was literally terrified that he would choke, but he didnt and we all lived to tell the tal...

My 5 year old is almost speechless with excitement about the possibility of snow. Naturally to him, all the snow means to him is making snowmen, snowball fights and a day off school. To say that the UK is ill-equipped to deal with snow is somewhat of an understatement. The country ground to a halt earlier this year when the snow came. The shops ran out of milk and loads of schools closed, including my sons. I'm fortunate in that I can work from home if necessary but my husband can't as he's a driving instructor. It's one thing to expose your pupils to a wide range of driving conditions, but its quite another to expose himself to mortal danger of being driven in dangerous conditions by an exuberant teenager who really wants to jump out of the car and throw snowballs at passing cars (apologies for the sweeping judgements in evidence here...). So tonight I am waiting with baited breath to see if there's an email from school entitled 'snow day' because ...

It says on BBC news website today that our dear Prime Minister wants to know how happy we all are. My first instinct to that was to question whether he cares at all, then I thought I'd read it to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps his election promises stood for something after all. Perhaps he really does care about the state of the family. He starts well... "He said the government's "most urgent priority is to get the economy moving, to create jobs, to spread opportunity for everyone". "Without a job that pays a decent wage it is hard for people to look after their families in the way that they want, whether that's taking the children on holiday or making your home a more comfortable place. "Without money in your pocket it is difficult to do so many of the things that we enjoy." But he said the government also had to focus on the long-term and he said "the country would be better off if we thought about well-being as...

Background... I saw an article today in a newspaper about a hospital trust which has been forced to take down a picture of a little girl pretending to breastfeed her dolly. There were complaints along the lines that the poster is inappropriate, crude and disgusting. The hospital responded by saying that the poster was part of a wider campaign to promote breastfeeding and specifically to say that its normal, and that children will ultimately copy their parents, so its part of trying to help create a 'normalized' breastfeeding culture. A 39 year old grandmother asked for it to be removed, saying that its not normal and that little girls shouldn't be breastfeeding their dolls. So theres the context of this blog. Breastfeeding is a highly emotive subject. Statistics show that most women who give up breastfeeding for one reason and another, wish they had carried on for longer. Wrapped up in there is a whole raft of emotions and so it is easy to see why when it co...

Naturally for starters there's my 3 heart wrenchingly precious children and wonderful husband but sometimes it helps me to remember that I like things, and that those things make me happy. Some of them are fairly standard and I would defy any warm blooded woman to say the first one doesn't ring a bell. -chocolate -being warm -savoury and sweet together like cheese and grapes -people who wear their hearts in their sleeves -rainbows -freshly changed bed linen -my animals -driving big cars -driving my 1967 VW Beetle -hugs -where the light refracts and makes speckly pattern on the floor/walls, we call them fairies here hmmm, well as I'm falling asleep in my phone I suspect now im not really fit for anything but sleeibgImm. I shall continue this tomorrow! Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

I have so much to be thankful for. My loving husband, 3 beautiful crazy children, a family that cares for me, a roof over my head and beliefs, activities, interests and hobbies that fulfil me. I've travelled quite a bit and in 2002 spent some time in Belo Hotizante, Brazil. Kev and I did some street work, taking food and other stuff to dome families living under the arches of a bridge. We met a woman living there and she wasn't well. Her floor was mud, her walls were packing crates. We knocked on her door and spent some time with her. We asked her if there was anything else we could do for her to help. She replied "I might not have much that you can see, but I've got a big heart and that's all that matters". This lady was a mother and grandmother. Her 'under bridge' community doted on her. She loved and was certain of their love. She was the most thankful woman I've ever met and I still feel humbled now thinking about her. I'm thankfu...

The UK doesn't know how to deal with snow. And its here already. Not in my neck of the woods thankfully, especially as with hubby being a driving instructor, but in the UK. Global warming as we speak. Do I rush out now and get snow chains? Will I look back and see this post and wish I had? No doubt more on this when we get snowed in. Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9