Tag: pbloggers

#EatSleepBlogRT – 21 May

Welcome to Week 7 of #EatSleepBlogRT! We’ve have decided to try out hosting the linky on both of our sites so you can now find it on Petite Pudding or The Mum Reviews. If you are a regular reader of one of our blogs, who is also a blogger and hasn’t tried out joining our […]

Welcome to Week 9 of #EatSleepBlogRT! It was a really busy week, as you will see from my host post, but I really enjoyed reading all your posts as a way to unwind on Friday night. I’m a little late adding this post and Zoe’s post is missing this week due to her wifi being gone for her impending move. Life never stops being interesting!

The winner of Top Post is Lisa Pomerantzster, “Swimming upstream. The world can be a pretty mean place sometimes, but it’s nice to be reminded that it’s right to keep on standing up for ourselves.

The Mum Reviews
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Top Tweeter was Laura from Five Little Doves (@fivelittledove5). And incidentally I really loved her post this week about CBeebies Land. I’d been wondering if it was worth going and she makes a good case.

The Mum Reviews
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So, as always, please link your post, comment on the one before you and tweet at least 5 links with the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag. We’re looking forward to reading your posts. Thanks for joining us.

Nicole and Zoe

The Mum Reviews
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So, as always, please link your post, comment on the one before you and tweet at least 5 links with the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag. We’re looking forward to reading your posts. Thanks for joining us.

Nicole and Zoe

Linky Rules

  • You can link 1 post – all subjects welcome
  • Please put our lovely badge on so that we can show off its fabulous design!
  • Comment on and tweet the post before yours.
  • Retweet at least 5 posts on twitter using the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag (including the hosts’ posts)
  • Hosts will retweet when you link up (if you tag us in your tweet) and when we comment.
  • We will pick one post each week as our featured post
  • A Host will comment on and tweet all posts linked up.

#EatSleepBlogRT – 14 May

Welcome to Week 7 of #EatSleepBlogRT! We’ve have decided to try out hosting the linky on both of our sites so you can now find it on Petite Pudding or The Mum Reviews. If you are a regular reader of one of our blogs, who is also a blogger and hasn’t tried out joining our […]

Welcome to Week 8 of #EatSleepBlogRT! Thanks for everyone who joined us last week. It was a great group and very hard to choose a top post among so many great ones!

The winner of Top Post was Miss P Meets World, “ “What’s in our baby keepsake box?”. This made me all emotional and nostalgic about the little things I have that remind me of when my babies were very small. They really do grow up too fast. Are you good at letting go of sentimental things to avoid clutter? I definitely am not!

The Mum Reviews
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I’m awarding Top Tweeter to The Frenchie Mummy (@FrenchieMummy) this week. She made a really great effort in tweeting out lots of posts.

The Mum Reviews
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So, as always, please link your post, comment on the one before you and tweet at least 5 links with the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag. We’re looking forward to reading your posts. Thanks for joining us.

Nicole and Zoe

The Mum Reviews
<div align="center"><a href="https://themumreviews.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" title="The Mum Reviews"><img src="http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii606/Petite_Pudding/EatSleepBlogRT%207_zpsz6pkpd9o.png" alt="The Mum Reviews" style="border: none; height: auto; width: 200px;" /></a></div>

Linky Rules

  • You can link 1 post – all subjects welcome
  • Please put our lovely badge on so that we can show off its fabulous design!
  • Comment on and tweet the post before yours.
  • Retweet at least 5 posts on twitter using the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag (including the hosts’ posts)
  • Hosts will retweet when you link up (if you tag us in your tweet) and when we comment.
  • We will pick one post each week as our featured post
  • A Host will comment on and tweet all posts linked up.

#EatSleepBlogRT – 7 May

Welcome to Week 7 of #EatSleepBlogRT! We’ve have decided to try out hosting the linky on both of our sites so you can now find it on Petite Pudding or The Mum Reviews. If you are a regular reader of one of our blogs, who is also a blogger and hasn’t tried out joining our linky, please join in! It’s a great way to get to know some other bloggers and get inspired with new ideas. If you’ve never joined a linky before and aren’t sure how it works, feel free to DM @themumreviews on Twitter with any questions you have.

The winner of Top Post among last week’s links was What My Fridge Says, “My boobs are not small, they are low fat.”. She writes about an unimaginably difficult time in her life and how it changed her perspective. She is, as ever, inspirational and reminds us how transformational gratitude and self-love can be even in the darkest of times.

The Mum Reviews
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We are back to our old ways with Heather from Shank You Very Much (@HeatherKeet) winning the Top Tweeter badge yet again. However, @myrealfairy was hot on her heels so the game is afoot this week.

The Mum Reviews
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So, as always, please link your post, comment on the one before you and tweet at least 5 links with the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag. We’re looking forward to reading your posts. Thanks for joining us.

Nicole and Zoe

The Mum Reviews
<div align="center"><a href="https://themumreviews.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" title="The Mum Reviews"><img src="http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii606/Petite_Pudding/EatSleepBlogRT%207_zpsz6pkpd9o.png" alt="The Mum Reviews" style="border: none; height: auto; width: 200px;" /></a></div>

Linky Rules

  • You can link 1 post – all subjects welcome
  • Please put our lovely badge on so that we can show off its fabulous design!
  • Comment on and tweet the post before yours.
  • Retweet at least 5 posts on twitter using the #EatSleepBlogRT hashtag (including the hosts’ posts)
  • Hosts will retweet when you link up (if you tag us in your tweet) and when we comment.
  • We will pick one post each week as our featured post
  • A Host will comment on and tweet all posts linked up.

I didn’t know blogging could change the world

Last weekend I attended Mumsnet’s Blogfest 2016. It was my first blogging conference, and I was a massive noob as I’ve only been blogging for about 4 months. I attended thinking I was going to learn how to grow and promote my blog. But I left with something much more important – a renewed sense of purpose.

Before I began blogging, I didn’t really know what it was all about. I thought people just wrote diaries about their daily lives and didn’t mind if strangers read them. I started my blog to offer advice about how to plan successful days out and holidays with young children in tow. I was going to keep it impersonal and apolitical, but my plans changed very early on.

I soon learned about the amazing community of parenting bloggers. These were intelligent, talented people who were writing about things for which they cared deeply. Parenting is not a walk in the park, and they were honestly sharing their achievements and failures in a way that could make others feel not so alone.

They were writing about important issues such as coping with miscarriages. They were removing the stigma from PND and other mental health issues by sharing their stories and coping strategies. They were standing up for others – both those like themselves and those who were different. They were campaigning for equal rights for all.

The other bloggers changed my goals for my blog and I started writing about issues I cared about too.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Blogfest was not just about beautiful photography and great SEO. It was about how blogging can make a difference.

We are living in a time when politics are making people feel uncertain about the future of the world. One of the drawbacks of social media is that it can filter out alternative voices, making it easier for people to only see what they want to. We’re living in a world where the truth belongs to whoever is powerful enough to propagate their version of it.

In such a world, bloggers have a surprising amount of power and responsibility. We are in a privileged position because we have the resources to publish our views and the skills to communicate them effectively.

That gives us the opportunity to campaign for what is right. We can speak up when others might fall silent. We can speak truth to power.

Blogfest was about so much more than monetizing your blog or increasing your pageviews. It was about a beautiful community of women and men who, unusually compared to so many other professions, support each other more often than they compete with each other. Who defend each other’s right to speak even when they disagree.

So as I look forward to continuing my blog, I will try not to obsess over stats or which brands I’m working with. I will focus on whether the things I’m saying will make a difference. I’ll add my voice to the many who are challenging dominant narratives. I will not be silent when I see injustice. And if that helps just one person feel less alone, or makes just one person reevaluate their thinking, then that makes it all worthwhile.

I’m going to leave you with this YouTube video that they played during the campaigning session at Blogfest. It was a speech from Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, about how one voice can effect change. The speech may be 8 years old, but I’m more fired up and ready to go than ever.

Petite Pudding
Tammymum
Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday

20 parenting moments I don’t want to forget

20 parenting moments I don't want to forget

I’ve been talking a lot about some the harder parts of parenting, so I’m trying to add a few happy posts to balance it all out. To quasi-quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, I would like to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.

Obi Wan Kenobi

Sure, I still have to wipe a lot of bottoms and noses and clean up the odd bit of sick. Yes, it’s true that they both wake up multiple times every night and I am always tired. But there are some wonderful things happening right now, and some things that happened not too long ago that I want to hold in my heart forever.

I wish I could bottle these things and save them for later when they’re long gone. There are hundreds of photos and videos, but some moments can’t be captured by a camera.

So here is my list of 20 early years parenting moments that I don’t want to forget:

  1. When one of them sits on my lap and I bury my face in his hair. The smell of the baby shampoo and the soft texture of the babyish hair (never mind the possibility of the odd nit).
  2. The half-a-minute each day when my boys show their brotherly love for each other – a shy little cuddle, sharing a bit of food, or playing nicely without it ending in a screamfest.
  3. The way my toddler dances with pure joy to any music at all. Even the ring of a mobile phone.
  4. All four of us snuggling in bed together in the early hours of the morning.
  5. The way my eldest never stops talking and loves to explain how things work (putting his own fanciful take on it, of course).
  6. Hugging both of them on the sofa and watching kid’s movies on lazy Sunday afternoons.
  7. The snorty mcsnuffles sound my youngest makes while contentedly sucking his dummy.
  8. The day each of them first gripped my finger with their tiny hands when they were newborns.
  9. The feeling of having them fall asleep in my arms.
  10. My toddler’s hilarious forays into talking (yelling ‘caaat’ at the cat and saying ‘beep’ while touching your nose), which he refuses to perform while the camera is recording.
  11. Watching CBeebies. My eldest is starting to move on to CBBC and I’m really going to miss Mister Maker and Iggle Piggle.
  12. The way my boys cuddle their soft toys. We grow up to think boys aren’t as sentimental as girls but that is not how it begins.
  13. Getting to choose what clothes they wear every day.
  14. Reading them stories. My eldest is starting to read the stories to me now, which is also nice, but I was loving the sound of my own voice. 😉
  15. Holding their little hands. Having them not be ashamed to hold my hand anytime in public.
  16. Having them jump into my arms when I pick them up from childcare/school.
  17. Answering endless “why” questions.
  18. The way they play so happily together when they’re in the bath. I often dread bathtime, but someday they’ll be too big for bathtime together with mummy presiding.
  19. The way my eldest says “I love you mummy”. And I say “I love you too”. Then he says, “That’s great.”
  20. Singing them to sleep.

What are your favourite moments with your children? If you could bottle one thing from their early years, what would it be?

Obi-Wan photo by Wacko Photographer [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Diary of an imperfect mum
Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday
Tammymum

My taciturn husband takes #TheDaddyTag challenge

The Frenchie Mummy nominated me for her Daddy Tag Challenge, where us mummy bloggers get our daddy counterparts to answer some questions about being a daddy. My husband Paul is nearly monosyllabic lots of the time (except when I’m really busy writing – then he keeps talking at me). So this was an interesting challenge for us! Will it be interesting for you, though, dear reader? Only you can decide…

Are you a Stay at Home Daddy or a Working Daddy?

Working Daddy, but I work from home twice a week and do school/nursery runs those days.

Would you have it any other way?

I wish I could be a stay-at-home dad, but I make more money than the wife so I’m stuck for now. Help her become a famous blogger and then maybe I can stay home. 😉

Do you co-change dirty nappies? Even the very smelly ones?

Ugh, yes.

A little fairy gives you the possibility of breastfeeding? Are you going for it or do you run away?

Run away.

What is the one must-have item for a daddy?

Beer.

How many kids do you plan on having?

I’ve got two and that’s enough.

Lads’ nights? How often do you have them?

At least weekly after work … but wife goes out at least once a week too.

Your children’s favourite achievement?

Potty training. We’re aiming high for their future.

What is your best memory with your kid(s)?

The first time both of them ate ice cream together on holiday.

Name one thing you miss since being a daddy?

Sleep. Especially that lie-in on a Saturday. And then being able to spend the rest of the day in the pub watching rugby, and maybe not come home until Sunday.

Weight gain, before pregnancy, during, after and now? And we mean YOU DADDY, not the mummy!

Yes. I joined wife in eating all the things.

Dream holiday with your kids?

When they’re older, taking them to Universal Studios in Orlando and staying in the Hard Rock Hotel. Waking up to guitar music. The Hulk rollercoaster in the afternoon. Margaritaville for dinner.

Dream holiday without your kids or even without the other half? (You’re allowed to dream)

Skiing and apres-skiing.

How has your life changed since having kids?

We don’t have as much freedom and adventure, but the kids more than make up for it with cuddles and silliness. Our livers probably are very thankful to the kids as well.

Finish the sentence “It makes my heart melt when…”

my toddler says “Daddy” – one of the only words he knows so far.

Favourite beers brands and football team?

Brewdog beer. I prefer rugby to football and like the Harlequins.

Huggies or Pampers?

Pampers leak a lot less, in my experience.

Have you always wanted kids?

Yes (probably).

Best part of being a dad?

Minesweeping my kids’ dinner plates. I love eating their leftover food.

the Frenchie Mummy Blog
Diary of an imperfect mum