Meat Free Monday?

One of my most annoying habits must be the way I always manage to answer a question with another question. Even over simple things. If my husband asks me what I want for dinner, nine times out of ten I'll reply with "What do you fancy?" I do this with so many things, for the simple reason that I am totally incapable of making a decision. I hate it! As soon as I decide something I start worrying about whether it was the right decision to make!

One decision I have always made for myself however is that I don't want to eat meat. I have been vegetarian since I was 18. My mum refused to let me be vegetarian before this point. She always thought it was 'just another phase' I was going through, and to be fair, there were quite a few of those, but as soon as I left home and went to uni, the meat went. I have never even been tempted to eat meat since then.

I was stood cooking this morning, making up a batch of bolognese for the children from finest beef mince, blood on my hands, I was feeling quite sick from it actually, but it got me thinking. A number of people have asked me whether I will bring up my children vegetarian but I don't.

The way I've always seen it, vegetarianism is a choice, one that I've made. My husband has chosen not to be a vegetarian. I have a friend who is a vegetarian and she has brought up her three children in the same way. Her husband doesn't eat meat in the house because she doesn't feel comfortable having meat in the house. Although I don't enjoy preparing meat, I do because I feel it's important that the children don't have it excluded from their diets just because I have made a choice not to eat it, and by preparing meals which do have meat in them means that we can all eat as a family regularly. My husband gets serious withdrawal symptoms if he doesn't get meat! But this has led me to wondering if I am in this case being a bit of a hypocrite? I'm still buying meat and supporting the industry after all.

My daughter is three now and is very aware that my 'chicken' looks different to hers. She really enjoys eating Quorn and I do give it to her, but I give her meat as well, despite the fact she isn't so keen on it. My son on the other hand is like his daddy and loves his meat, he can't get enough! I know that if either of my children decide that they want to become vegetarian when they are older and fully understand what this means, I will support them and allow them to do this as long as they get the nutrients through other foods in their diet. Until then, I will continue to do what I do, I'd rather be a hypocrite than have my children vitamin deficient, but how do other people deal with this issue? I'm sure I'm not the only one!

Teacher or Mum? Or Both?

I qualified as a secondary school teacher at the age of 21, so apart from various jobs I did as a student it's the only form of 'work' I've ever known. Why did I put the 'w' word in inverted commas? Well to me, I never really saw it as work. Obviously it was, during term time it was tiring, sometimes I worked 15 hour days, often I'd work weekends. Occasionally I'd leave work early, then sit at home planning lessons or marking books for another 9 hours - yes really! The trouble is, I found it difficult calling it work because I loved it so much - I still do. It's fab getting up knowing that you are guaranteed genuine enthusiasm, ambition, and plenty of laughter at some point. On top of that, the feeling you get at certain points in the year, for example on GCSE results day or at the end of the school show, success and joy, just makes you forget about the long stressful hours you've put in, in order to be able to witness these moments. It's suddenly all worth it and nothing else matters.

It's just like the first time you set eyes on your newborn child, how everyone knows that first cuddle makes you forget all the time and pain it took for them to get there!

I'm a very all or nothing kind of person, so when I was pregnant for the first time, I was petrified about the prospect of not being at work and was only going to take three months off initially. I'd been selected to represent Dorset as the Leading Teacher for my subject which I was immensely proud of, but what if my maternity cover made decisions I didn't like? What if they didn't prepare the students for their exams properly? and I guess if I'm being honest, there was also a strong sense of 'What if my maternity cover makes good decisions?' and 'What if the students like their maternity cover better than me?' You're never going to be able to win in that situation particularly when you're a big bulging bag of hormones!

When my daughter was born in May 2007, all of a sudden my priorities changed and it was thanks to my maternity cover that this happened. My daughter was born 3 days before the GCSE Music final exam, and I had told my replacement that I would go into school that day to talk through everything with the students unless I was in labour. I stayed in hospital overnight and checked my emails when I got home the next day, to find a message entitled 'Congratulations and Lesson Plan.' The message itself read: 'Congratulations on your little girl. I'm presuming this means you won't be coming in for Lesson 3 as planned, so could you please forward me a lesson plan for Year 11?' This message was truthfully sent while I was still in the birthing pool, not even any sign of a placenta yet! From that point on, I had my beautiful little girl to look after and the thought of having to leave her and go back to work was the scariest prospect in the world. Three months very quickly became the entire year I was allowed to take, and I returned already pregnant with my son.

I was prompted to write this post for Holly's working mum's carnival over at It's a Mummy's Life and as soon as I read about it I knew I wanted to contribute. For me, it was never a serious option that I would leave work completely. I happen to have got married and bought my first house about three years too late for this to be viable. My decision to go back to work wasn't purely financial, although this was a big part of it. We could afford it, just, but there would be no money left over for anything else, no treats, and I feel very strongly that everyone deserves those.

I know a lot of parents, my own mother included would argue that this doesn't matter, as long as you are there to see your children grow up, that time costs nothing etc. I don't think I'm ready to go back to work full time yet, and maybe if I'd hated my job things would be different, but I love working three days every week. Here's why:

• I still get to spend the majority of my time with the children on a weekly basis and get 13 weeks holiday a year too
• We can afford to provide our children with everything they need, when they need it
• We can afford to treat ourselves
• We can have a family holiday every year without getting into debt which the kids love
• The children go to nursery and pre school and really do benefit from the contact with other children, and learn values they couldn't fully appreciate if they were at home with me the whole time
• From a selfish point of view I get to eat lunch three days a week with people who don't also attempt to eat their own poo, and if I need a wee, noone follows me into the cubicle, jewellery I wear generally stays put for the whole day and my clothes remain the colour they begin when I put them on in the morning!
• As a result of the above point, my patience has generally been restored from going to work, meaning that I am able to enjoy my four days with the children, doing fun things that only toddlers can dream up!
• Working three days will hopefully keep me up to date with developments in education so that I am still employable if I decide I would like to go back to work full time

So ultimately, do I feel guilty being a working mum? Yes, but it is a selfish guilt which I think any parent feels, whether they work full time or are just asking someone else to look after their child for 20 minutes so they can pop to the shops. I would also feel guilty if I didn't go to work and wasn't able to buy that special toy that one of the children had been yearning after for ages, or if they couldn't go on that day out with their friends because we'd had to get rid of our second car. It really is no win once you have children. Everyone has their own opinions about what is right and wrong, and just like everything else in life, we will never have everyone in agreement, so we just have to go with what we think is right for us. Ultimately, my children are happy, they are well rounded, they are cared for 24/7 and Mummy and Daddy are still their best friends. I love my job, but my children and my family are my life. I'm lucky I get to enjoy both, and it's only one week til half term when we all get to spend the whole week together!

Play Doh Tastic

My best childhood friend's brother once said that I was 'unable to shut up, even on a postcard!' after they got charged excess postage because I selotaped an essay to the bottom of my picturesque ramblings. He died at an unfairly young age last year so I've decided in his honour to not even try and be wordless on a Wednesday, however I will try and share a photo with you and let that do most of the talking!

Over on Twitter, I've been moaning about the headache I've now had for three days. I don't get loads of headaches, but when I do they're really intense and seem to go on for ages. I was thinking a day off work today would help, given that trying to teach about 150 teenagers yesterday all armed with musical instruments definitely didn't help, nor did going to bed last night at 9pm and getting a full 10 hours kip.

How naive to think that 2 toddlers would be happy to give me a break and let me have a headache in peace! Or is it? I feel like I owe my sanity to the company that invented Play Doh right now. My children have been playing happily, contentedly and independently for nearly an hour now, and I think my headache might just be on it's way out. If only they could carry on like this for another hour...!

Free Fun

Having 6 weeks holiday every summer is never going to be something I complain about! However, I noticed that since having kids this break brought with it a certain expectation from the little ones that this was a special time, and with this they associated treats and being able to do exciting things, which often cost ridiculous amounts of money for what they actually are. A particular gripe of mine is that when your child hits 3, they suddenly become an 'adult' in terms of entrance price, even though they often can't do a lot of the activites because they don't meet the criteria e.g. not tall enough.

We recently went for a day out to meet Dora the Explorer at the Adventure Wonderland in Bournemouth. My 3 year old was desperate to do this and it was a very kind Christmas present from her Great Grandad that he bought us a family day pass which we could use whenever we liked. Had we not had this, the day would have cost us over £50. My 3 year old had a brilliant time and we did spend the whole day there, but this kind of expense is obviously not sustainable over a long 6 week holiday (did I mention I get 6 weeks holiday in the summer?!).

We're really having to be careful with money as are lots of our friends and so we decided to see, after returning from our holiday whether we could have a 'frugal' week. We tried to do at least one activity every day that was for the children, so here's how we spent a week enjoying ourselves for less than a tenner:

Moors Valley Country Park We started the week with a family day out here. They do charge for car parking, but there's so much to do for free: walks and cycle rides, play trails, tree top trails, play areas, and lots of places for picnics and feeding ducks. Obviously there's other things that you do need to pay for like a steam train, and Go Ape but a fab day was definitely had by all!

Rockpooling We had so much fun doing this when we went camping. We drove down to Kimmeridge Bay and stayed there with fishing nets and buckets for nearly 3 hours. Wrap up warm though because despite being a nice day it was very cold and windy!

The Splash Park is a definite hit. Why is it that children just love water?! This council run park is fantastic and you could easily spend a day there because of its location on Christchurch Quay. As well as the water park there is also a traditional park, lots of green grass, and lovely ducks to feed!

The Library. I'm sure this doesn't sound great but we went to the library to return some books and ended being there for most of the morning. Libraries offer so much more than a book loaning service now. My 1 year old loves his weekly Wriggle and Rhyme class, while my 3 year old enjoys going in and playing with the toys (most of which she has versions of at home!), choosing books for her brother or just sitting down at the tables and looking through the books herself.

The Forest. I guess we're really lucky living where we do because not everyone has the luxury of having this and the next option on their doorstep, but you really can't beat putting the bikes, picnics and ball games into the car and heading into the forest for the day. Some of the parks in the forest even have barbecue sites.

The beach. The sun comes out, the costumes and spf go on, bucket and spade and picnic in the back, and we're off for another day of getting soaked and bringing half a tonne of sand home, but again, for no money at all, we've had a lovely day!

Honeybrook Farm. Another great day out. This is an actual working farm that makes its income through donations, and the farm shop (and car parking again). As well as seeing the animals and having (another) lovely picnic, there's walking trails, an adventure playground and tractor trailer rides to be had too!

So it's definitely possible to have fun on little money, a revelation that most parents will already know, and luckily my children are still at the age when fun is fun and money is irrelevant, but I'll definitely need your help in a few years when that ceases to be the case!

Blogger's Paradise?

Am I a Mummy Blogger? Well I sometimes blog, and generally my posts revolve around children, although sometimes they are not mine. However I have given birth to 2 children, whose antics often do feature in my posts, so I guess that yes, I'm a Mummy Blogger. I'm pretty new to it though. I don't really have any objectives that I'm aiming to achieve as a result of my blogging, I simply enjoy having a little outlet where I can put my thoughts and opinions down, and have a bit of fun making them look pretty. I went back to my girl guide days the other day when one of my posts got featured on http://www.parentdish.co.uk/ and I got a badge to put on my blog!

For me, social networking is something I enjoy and I'm lucky that I haven't had a bad experience yet, so all this talk of cyberbullying in the Mummy Blogging world just makes me feel really sad. I guess however it's just a fact of life that some people are 'glass half full' and some will always be 'glass half empty.' However, social networking is really just a branch of reality nowadays and no one can deny that unfortunately people react like this in the real world too. It's just a sad fact and here's some examples:

When I first went back to work after maternity leave I had a lot of catch up to do with my students to try and help them get the grades they deserved (fingers crossed for tomorrow!). The vast majority of people I work with were really helpful and supportive, but one colleague had two choices: help and support me in trying to do what was best for everyone concerned, or put me down publicly and deliberately make me feel like poo. When they chose the latter, I felt gutted, really upset, but did that stop me doing 'the right' thing? No, if anything, the support I got from everyone else reassurring me that this person was clearly the one with the problem, made me feel more confident than I did before, and I really hope when the students get their results tomorrow their hard work and my perseverence is rewarded.

My daughter came home from pre school today and told us a boy had taken her beloved 'bunny' from her and told her she couldn't have it back. I asked her how it made her feel and what she did. She said it had made her sad but had told the boy that he could share it with her and he could hold it for 15 seconds. Then she told the teacher who made her give it back. 1-0 to my daughter!

Someone pushed my son over the other day because he rang on the door bell of the play house in the kids area at the gym. My son wasn't impressed, but it didn't stop him ringing the bell again... relentlessly for about 10 minutes!
 
We're all sensitive people. I think the difference with cyberbullying is that firstly it's there for all to see, a public humiliation of sorts, and secondly, it can be relived. A blazing row is just that. Over in minutes and all you can do is relive it in your head (and if you're anything like me try and work out what would've been a better, wittier retort to make instead of the pathetic one you did!). When it's through the computer though you can read those comments again and again, they don't change, and they probably don't get any easier to read. Those same horrible stabbing pains in your stomach return every time.

No one has the right to make another person feel this way. It's fine to disagree, but please read what you write before you post your comment. You need to explain why you disagree otherwise your thoughts can just be construed as insults and correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that's not why we're all here!

Fun in the Sun!

I think I've finally got it! So many of the people I know live for their holidays. I'm not talking about the kind where you don't have to go to work, I'm talking about the ones where you have to pack a suitcase and go away from your house! I've never been one for holidays. Even as a kid, my parents used to have to cut their holidays short because I was (in their words) "a bloody nightmare!" I just didn't understand why people would want to leave their house and their comforts, to spend time somewhere strange with nothing to do that they normally enjoy doing. I had this opinion until this summer. My husband and I got together in 2002. Until this summer we had had one holiday, which was our honeymoon in 2005, which I think we only really went on because you kind of have to! We had lots of weekends away, visits to friends etc. but nothing you would actually term a proper holiday.

Having grown up very untravelled, I never wanted this for my children, so my husband and I decided that from this year we would make sure that we went on holiday somewhere every year. Even booking it this year was only done 3 weeks before we left, because I had so many fears and reservations, but we had to do it for the kids!

However, I feel quite grown up now having been on a proper holiday all by myself! We had 2 short holidays back to back. First of all we went camping for 3 days to Norden Farm near Corfe, very close to where we live, we then went to La Grande Metairie campsite in France for a week. The kids had an amazing time as they got to experience things they've never done before, and with an innocence, enthusiasm and excitement that can never be seen in the mundanity of every day life. So what made it so special for me?

• Not wearing a watch because it didn't really matter what the time was
• Not cringing every time the kids got dirty because it'd soon wash off in the pool!
• Being able to say yes when the kids asked to do something because there was no reason why they couldn't like there is at home
• Drinking wine in the middle of the day
• Having no internet or xbox!

Her fave place on holiday (expensive as we have one in our garden)!

Poor Daddy's turn!

I asked my 3 year old what she most enjoyed about holiday too. Here are her answers:

• Eating chocolate yoghurts and Smarties ice cream
• Saying Bonjour and Au Revoir
• Burying Mummy and Daddy in the sand
• The bouncy castle and swings
• The mini disco

Here's what she thought her 1 year old brother enjoyed most:

• Eating chocolate yoghurts
• Eating Smarties ice cream
• Burying Mummy and Daddy in the sand
• Eating sand on the beach
• Weeing in the shower!

Giving it some at the Mini Disco!

I've definitely learnt to understand why people value their holidays now and we're already looking into next year, although knowing us, we'll be scrabbling around 3 weeks before again, just hope we get as lucky second time!