Aaaaargh - POO!

I was going to put a picture of a poo at the start of this post but when I looked at the pictures they were way too gross, and actually made me feel a lot sicker than dealing with poo in the flesh. Being a mummy means that you deal with poo on a daily basis but my most recent brush with poo was a bit too 'hands on'....

So, last week we were doing the old bedtime routine and at this time of the day Isla is a handful to say the least, a mixture of tired and hyperactive. Lots of shrieking, running about and general madness. We've done the bath and she's running naked around her bedroom doing this new thing of singing snippets of various nursery rhymes. We get 'Twinkle twinkle' mixed up with 'Three Blind Mice' and it's actually all really cute and she's laughing her head off. She's also started saying 'Poo Poo' quite a bit and generally it doesn't mean she's about to do one, it could be she's done one already, or she's doing a wee or it could be nothing at all. So the next thing we know, she's behind the chair in her room and all singing has stopped and things go quiet and she says 'poo poo' and me and the OH fly in her direction, both thinking the same thing, 'Nooooooooo!!! M U S T  N O T  L E T  T H E  P O O  H I T  T H E  C A R P E T!!!!'

I get there first (lucky me!) and there she is, knees bent with the poo emerging and I catch it in my hands...Isla is looking very confused and on the verge of being upset now because of our hullabaloo to get to the poo. In all her 19 months I've not had a poo in my hand. As it landed it was like playing a game of hot potato, I had to get rid of it quick, so OH has opened a nappy and I lob it at the nappy. It lands on the carpet! Great, so I've got to pick it up again. Meanwhile OH is giving Isla a round of applause in order to stop the tears from coming and to prevent her getting some weird poo complex and she's now very pleased with her efforts.

10 minutes later, poo has been cleaned up, nappy has been put back on and pyjamas are on and all is back to normal, except I now can't get the image of holding a poo in my hands out of my head and I'm wondering if this will happen again, particularly when we decide to start potty training............

The next night, Isla remembers the scene of 'Poo-gate' - she goes behind the chair again and points and says 'Poo' and I reassure her that there is no poo tonight....and I hope no other night for the foreseeable!

New Maclaren Nursery Range - Family Day Out in London!

On Sunday Hubbie, Isla and I wrapped up warm and left the house by 9am to catch the train to London. We were on a family day out and I was really looking forward to it!

First there was the train, Isla loves the train ever since we came up to London to visit Tommee Tippee. She was a bit of handful but it's to be expected, kids love trains!! We got to Victoria and then took the bus, where Isla charmed other passengers with smiles and giggles. We were headed for the Sealife centre on the Southbank. We had a lovely time, although Isla wasn't as impressed with the sharks as I thought she'd be. Then we moved on to Pizza Express, because Italian is her favourite cuisine (well pasta is her staple diet!) and she loves Italian coffee culture.....

Isla was clearly unimpressed with the sights of London....

The main purpose of my visit to London was a trip to Harrods, taking up an invite from Maclaren to check out their new nursery range designed by their 'designer-in-chief' David Netto. So we headed over there and while Isla slept in her buggy (Maclaren of course!) I spoke to David and checked out the new designs which are currently exclusive to Harrods. The focus in store was on the Moderne and Cabine collections, and they are both beautiful in their own way.

David is a world renowned interior designer and has lent his love of modern minimalism to the range. He first became interested in nursery furniture when his first child arrived and he realised that there was nothing modern and stylish on offer. He set about designing modern nursery furniture that stood out from the mainly traditional offerings on the market. The Moderne and Cabine collections are both luxurious and but also practical.

Moderne: This was my personal favourite, pieces are made from ebonized ash and white lacquer, it just screams sophistication! The cot bed has a useful sliding shelf underneath and once use as a cot/ cotbed is over it can be converted into a daybed, which really stops this item of furniture becoming throw away that has no use after a couple of years like most cotbeds. It also has a useful sliding out shelf below the mattress.

The matching changer unit also transforms itself from a changing table into a dresser for adult use as the changer on the top can be flipped over when you have no use for that part any longer. 

Cabine: This is made from natural oak and white lacquer. It has a hidden draw for storage of bedding underneath and can also be converted into a daybed. Again there is a changer to go with it that the top can also be flipped over so as to convert it to a dresser leaving no inkling that it had a use to change baby!

Finally, one of my personal favourite pieces in the David Netto for Maclaren range is Rufus the Polar Bear Rocker!

Isn't he gorgeous! You could win Rufus by entering the competition that Maclaren are currently running on Facebook - click here 

Overall I was very impressed with the nursery furniture and although it's high end prices it's also high in practicality and style, and it fits in with with the trusted Maclaren brand.

On finishing my chat with David I went off to meet Hubbie and a still dozing Isla and we set off on our way back home. All in all a really wonderful Sunday!

We were given travel expenses to attend this event at Harrods, no other payment was made to write this post.

Listography - Books and Babies

Ever since Isla was very little I have always read to her, reading is one of my favourite past times and I very much hope that she follows in my foot steps. I've blogged about the importance of reading on my Library  post recently. Reading really does fire up the imagination and I loved becoming immersed in a book especially on winter days. I grew up in the 80's, in the days when TVs in kids bedrooms started becoming popular, but I just didn't want one! I was happy listening to tapes (!) and reading books - does that make me a geek?!

The following 3 books are regularly thumbed in our house, and we never tire of them!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

We love this book, Isla has had it read to her millions of times practically since birth! The colours are beautiful and when she was really little she just loved putting her fingers in all the holes that the caterpillar made in the food. I like to get her to point out all the things that she recognises - the cakes on the last day of the caterpillars gorge-fest are her current favourite!

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

A really nice lift the flap book that helps babies to recognise animals and it gives me the chance to ad-lib and do all the animal noises. Isla's favourite of my animal impressions is when I pretend to spit like a camel! OK, not very ladylike but it gets a laugh every time!!

Spot's Noisy Night by Eric Hill

Spot goes camping with his friends and they have a very disturbed night what with owl's 'twowittwowooing' and frogs leaping around the tent! This one is so fun and brilliant because throughout the story there are sounds to play and for each of the sounds is a puzzle piece that your child can fit into the pages. This is such a great interactive book and is the latest in a line of Spot books that we own.



The next two books are obviously a bit too advanced for Isla right now, but they are two favourites of mine from when I was a child and I really hope she takes to them like I did. When I was at primary school I had to write book reviews of all the books I read and I've still got the folder up in Mum and Dad's loft! I read so much, I was a book worm, so choosing just these two was a struggle because I could have gone for Ramona and Beezus or Pippi Longstocking and actually all Roald Dahl books hold a special place in my book loving heart, so it was hard to pick one of his.

The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton

This series of books by Enid Blyton are just pure fantasy. I loved Moonface and Silky the fairy. Through the Faraway Tree they showed us magical lands and all manner of creatures. My favourite of all the lands is 'The Land of Take What You Want'
where, as the name suggests, you can take whatever you want for free!


Thinking about this book has made me feel all nostalgic about the Enid Blyton books I used to own, they all had hard covers and the pages felt so good (does that sound weird!?).


I'd love for Isla to get lost in these books imagining that she is visiting all these wonderful places. They are so escapist and can really help you forget about the real world...

The Twits by Roald Dahl

This is one of my favourite Roald Dahl books (along with The Witches, Georges Marvellous Medicine...). The descriptions of Mr and Mrs Twit are fantastic and I always loved how Mr Twit was just so extra disgusting with food in his beard and you could almost smell how unclean they were from the descriptions. They hate children and they torment animals but as is the case in all Roald Dahl's books the mean characters always get their come uppance!

Roald Dahl's books also have the extra benefit that they have gorgeous illustrations by Quentin Blake - something I have blogged about previously here.

One of my things I want to do at some time in the future is go to the Roald Dahl museum, something to save for when Isla is older.

This post is part of the Listography Linky that Kate Takes 5 runs every week. Pop over to her blog to see her book suggestions and also a whole host of others!

Peppa Pig iPhone App - Review

In the last few weeks Isla's fixation with Balamory has transferred to Peppa Pig - I breathed a sigh of relief - there was only so much of Miss Hooley I could take! Because the episodes are so short when the credits go up she gets all disappointed and then suddenly happy again when she sees Peppa has come back on. I enjoy Peppa Pig too, mostly laughing at Daddy Pig. When the opportunity came up to review a new Peppa Pig iPhone app I jumped at the chance as I could see that it would be a good distraction for Isla.

There are 3 Polly Parrot games where you can win stickers depicting the characters and then for the last part of the app there are lots of different backgrounds where you can use your stickers to make up pictures.

The games are:'Feed Parrot', which is Isla's favourite, where Polly Parrot is hungry and you have to feed  the amount of crackers she asks for - it really helps with counting, which at 19 months I thought Isla would be too young for but she is already saying some numbers in order which I find amazing!

There is also 'Find Polly', where Polly Parrot flies around the house and you have to find her behind furniture, in the trees etc and then 'Talking Parrot', where you can make Polly say silly things. The more you play the games the more stickers you can build up to use in the sticker part of the app and this is also a favourite of Isla's, she likes dragging the characters all around the screen.

I've found this app particularly useful when Peppa Pig isn't on the TV as Isla hasn't yet grasped the concept that it's not always on and I can't magic up Peppa at anytime, at least with this app she can get a Peppa fix at the drop of a hat! I'm also hoping it will prove useful on an upcoming flight to France at Easter, I shall keep you posted....

Peppa Pig Polly Parrot is available to download for £1.79 on iTunes or through the iPhone app store. http://itunes.com/appstore

This is a sponsored post, we received the Polly Parrot app at no cost in order to review it.

Robe-Around by Sporty Bump - Review

I was given the great opportunity to try out a 'Sporty Bump Robe-Around' -  a wrap-around pleated towelling robe aimed at pregnant ladies and new mums to be. Created to give complete privacy during pregnancy. Ideal in public places such as the swimming baths, gym, tanning rooms or health club. The trial of Robe-Around couldn't have been timed better as Isla has started swimming lessons and we now head to the pool on a weekly basis. As my bump has grown, the more I've come to appreciate the roominess of the design!

The central theme of Sporty Bump products is that they recognise that us pregnant women have needs and we want to look and feel good even as our body shape changes. This particular product is excellent in that it has pleats built in so that as your bump grows it still covers your modesty! There is also no chance of the towel falling down on you in the changing rooms due to the nifty velcro fastening at the top!

This is also not a product thats use ends when pregnancy is over. We all take varying amounts of time to get our bodies back in to shape after having a baby so the towel still works to keep our body under wraps!

Personally I have found it to be my towel of choice now for swimming. The fact that it stays secure and grows with my body is brilliant. I'm not shy about my pregnant body at all but I think that the concept is great for women of all shapes and sizes who may not feel so confident in a changing room environment.

Getting changed with a toddler can take time, they wander off all over the place and so without the velcro fastening I'd be forever tucking in a towel as it would inevitably fall down all the time. The length of the fastening is also quite long meaning that the towel is one size and will fit even the biggest of bumps!

It would also be perfect as a holiday cover-up for the pool or beach. One size fits all and it comes in black.

It can be purchased from http://www.sportybump.co.uk/ and it retails at £20 plus p&p. You can keep in touch with Sporty Bump on twitter http://twitter.com/SportyBump) and Facebook.

I was sent a sample 'Robe-Around' for the purposes of this review and did not receive any other financial reward for the post.

Swim Baby Swim...Summary review

Sunday was Isla's last lesson with Anne and we had high hopes for it to be brilliant, as you usually do when you've been looking forward to something all week. I can say that this lesson was a 'good' lesson - if anything these lessons have taught me that Isla will dictate how the lesson goes and this week she did well, but because I was on a high about how good she was last week I thought it was going to be the same again. In her defence she has a cough and about 8 BIG teeth cutting through, so I'm not going to quibble if she's a bit clingy in the pool one week. Anne as usual was her calm, patient self which helps a lot when Isla's not playing ball!

We did some practicing at jumping in the pool and that went fairly well as she could see the older children doing it and she likes the splashing! We used the float again and also some wind up toys that we put in the water just out of reach to encourage her to reach out with her arms. We reinforced on her the need to kick her legs, regularly uttering 'Kick, kick, kick, kick!'. She did a couple of bits with her face under the water but she was quite clingy in the pool and had a cough, so think that she wasn't quite sure this week. Anne was so pleased with her though and says that she will be a great little swimmer - and that's good enough for me!

And so I come to the end of my review posts for Isla's lessons with Swim Baby Swim UK, it may be my last review but it's not the end of the road for Isla and her lessons with Anne, we've decided that she has really achieved over the past 6 weeks and we've booked up for a further 6! All in all we've had some brilliant family time, we've immersed Isla in a hobby that we hope she will learn and improve at. I feel it is so important to learn to swim. It is a life saving skill and in time we hope to have plenty of holidays to my parents house abroad where a large communal pool won't pose a hazard for our family, it will be place of fun. I myself was taken to regular swimming lessons when I was child by my dad and I remember it fondly. I want Isla to experience the same. Also from talking to Anne I've realised that it really is the earlier the better when it comes to starting babies swimming lessons, as babies are born with the ability to swim. So when baby boy comes along we will definitely be getting him used to the water just like his big sister.

I'd like to say thank you to Anne for the opportunity and we look forward to continuing with Isla's lessons for the foreseeable future.

This is a sponsored post, we received a course of 6 swimming lessons. Opinions expressed are my own and are completely honest.

Bump Watch...Week 22



I think I've really 'popped' this week! Still on a high from finding out it's a Boy!