your – Mediocre Mum

Lost for ideas….try a pick your own…

Don’t you just love summer holidays? Not! I’m only on day 3 and already on my knees. I don’t remember as a kid having such a fun filled agenda, my mum used to open the front door shoe us out and that was it for the rest of the day. Now I find myself busier than a party planner and getting paid diddly squat for it!

We have had a full on day, gymnastics followed by a picnic in the park but this afternoon we did something a bit different. We went to our local Pick your Own (not nose) and picked some strawberries and blackberries. I think they’ve missed a trick; they should really weigh the kids before and after and not the punnet as not many berries made it into the pots.

It was a lovely way to kill an hour! However, it dawned on me afterwards, ‘now what am I going to do with all this fruit?’ I’m no dab hand in the kitchen, a few people suggested making jam followed by scones. I nearly fell about laughing. Someone did suggest making wine with it and I was tempted. I already had a punnet of strawberries and raspberries in the fridge that were out of date, ready to be composted. My mate was going to make a crumble so I thought I’d give it a go as well.

It was really dead easy. I used the following recipe….

We had great fun! But now I know why I don’t bake just imagine we also made a trip to the shop especially for custard….

But her final words were….’I don’t like crumble!’

These kids don’t know they were born.

Would you let someone else breastfeed your baby?

I do believe that breast feeding is best; however, I was unable to breastfeed Madame. This is not the issue I wanted to cover, as it has been done to exhaustion. The only thing I will say on the matter is that whatever someone decides to do, woman should support each other no matter what.

However, I read a tweet a while back and to be honest it made me very uncomfortable and I want you guys to help me through it. This is not an opportunity to call me names or say that I’m closed minded. If I was close minded I wouldn’t be asking the question. I can’t remember the tweet word for word but it was someone saying how happy they were that their friend, and adoptive mother, was able to breastfeed successfully. Initially, my mind boggled, so I quickly Googled it and learned that yes, in fact, there are drugs women can take to bring on lactation, fascinating stuff.

I would never want to deny an adoptive mother the opportunity to experience the bond with her child that a birth mother would through breastfeeding. However, there is something about taking drugs to bring on the process that makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m sure they’re safe but really can’t get my head around it. If I think about it a bit more, I drink milk, cows are fed hormones to produce milk which has measurable quantities of herbicides, pesticides, dioxins antibiotics blood, pus, faeces, bacteria and viruses and there is nothing natural about it so what’s my problem?

Then a few days later I read yet another tweet. It was from a childminder who was looking for a bit of advice. The woman that she worked for was unable to breastfeed and she was wondering if it would be appropriate if she offered to breast feed her child! I know she meant well, but I did tell her I would be extremely uncomfortable if someone asked me this. I know back in the day, people had wet nurses and the survival of children relied on other mothers to help out. But nowadays formulas are very extensive. As a mother I couldn’t sit and watch someone else feed my child it would break my heart.

Thoughts???

Its Your Story! Personalised Gifts

I have to say I was really excited about reviewing Its Your Story, personalised books for children as I think it’s a brilliant idea and I wasn’t disappointed. All you have to do is choose a book from the website, which is nicely broken down by birthdays, gender or genre. There is also a section for Adults.

Once you have chosen a book they contact you and ask for details. In our case, it was daughter’s name, address, best friend’s name, and favourite food. Then all we had to do was upload a photo of Madame. Easy peasy. I think they would make excellent gifts; one to note with Christmas around the corner.

We chose a classic, Jack and the Beanstalk. When she first saw herself in the book she got so excited, shouting her name on each page.

Still not convinced, have a listen