A Modern Mother

Ever wonder what people say when you leave the room?

2010-03-15T06:26:32+00:00

As I flipped on the coffee maker Saturday morning, hubby informed me "he had a board meeting on Monday." This of course was code for me too please occupy the girls for a couple hours while he locked himself in the office.

So ... off we went to Cafe Nero. I let the girls put on whatever they wanted -- which manifested in a rainbow of pink leggings, green and yellow summer dresses and navy jumpers. I pulled on the first thing I could find -- Gap curvy jeans with some sort of splotch on the leg (toothpaste? gravy?) and the gray and pink Laura Ashely jumper I've been living in all winter.

Oh well, it was still early, maybe we wouldn't run into anyone we knew.

"Oh, hi Susanna!" It was one of the mums from the PTA. She introduced me to her sister, who was here from somewhere up North. We chatted. The sister had lived in the US. She was here all weekend. She had two children herself. Then they left and we sat down with our baby cappuccinos and chocolate muffins.

As they walked out, I couldn't help but imagine the conversation. "Yes, she's really nice, but (in a lower tone) she writes really dodgy things about the PTA on her blog."

When I first moved to the UK about 20 years ago, at work I was known as "that American woman on the 2nd floor."

Then, after two consecutive conceptions and maternity leaves, I became "the one who's pregnant. AGAIN!"

At playgroups, I was the one who was going back to work.

When I lived in La Jolla, I'm sure I was known as "the crazy woman who had three babies in less than three years." I met a woman at the play park and after I told her the ages of the children, she said "Oh, I've heard about you".

In the blogging world, I'm, you know, that one who started that network.

So what do people say when YOU leave a room?

Photo credit: Roy Sinai

It's here! CyberMummy 2010

2010-03-12T07:03:26+00:00

It's here! CyberMummy 2010 - a conference devoted solely to mum bloggers and the kinds of thing we want to talk about!

After all the great blogger meet-ups, we wanted more: more networking and more advice and perhaps a bit more wine (or at least biscuits).

So three of us bloggers - Susanna, (me!), Sian (www.mummy-tips.co.uk) and Jennifer (www.alphamummy.com) - have banded together and organised a one-day event where we can share stories, trade tips and learn a few things from experts and each other. The day will have sessions devoted to content, understanding technical things like SEO and working with sponsors.
It's a day that's for and about bloggers: you'll see some of your favourite bloggers on panels, borrow their best ideas in CyberLabs and debate issues over coffee or lunch.

PLUS we want you to be a part of it. At the end of the day instead of the typical conference wrap-up, we're hosting a Crowdsourced Keynote: a collection of best posts from attendee's blogs, read by them. So register for the conference now then nominate one of your favourite posts (maybe your most popular, maybe just the one that meant the most to you) or a post from someone else's.

Sign up now and you can even take advantage of our great discount: the early bird rate is only £80, a £20 discount. Take advantage of it now - it only lasts until 15th April.

The conference takes place on Saturday 3 July at the Earls Court Ibis in London.

Go to CyberMummy.com to find out more and to register before tickets sell out!

Want to win your mortgage for a year?!

2010-03-12T05:50:08+00:00

This is a sponsored post

Andrex wants to help you win your mortgage payments for a year!

For one week starting Monday (15th March) you can win your mortage, or rent, up to the value of £12,000!

Simply sign up at www.andrexpuppypoints.co.uk/asda, enter the code on the inside of pack and you will qualify for one free entry to the competition.

Step 1 - Buy your special promotional pack of Andrex from ASDA stores from the 15th of March (for one week only);
Step 2 - Go to www.andrexpuppypoints.co.uk/asda and sign up;
Step 3 - Enter the code on the inside of pack and you will qualify for one free entry into the competition.

Good luck!

Photo credit: Rev Dan Catt

Are you available Tuesday? Want to see The Blind Side for FREE?

2010-03-10T17:51:59+00:00

What are you doing Tuesday 16th March?

Want to see the Oscar winning The Blind Side at a special preview screening before its nationwide cinema release on 26th March?!

This is not a contest, it's first come, first served. There's bound to be a cinema showing near you -- it's at 30 across the UK! (see list below.)

For your chance to attend a special daytime preview screenin, simply enter the below code at www.seefilmfirst.com to get your complimentary pair of tickets! Ask your friends. Go wild. Hurry before they are gone!

Code: 560634

The Blind Side Synopsis: Teenager Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) is surviving on his own, virtually homeless, when he is spotted on the street by Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). Learning that the young man is one of her daughter’s classmates, Leigh Anne insists that Michael—wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the dead of winter—come out of the cold. Without a moment’s hesitation, she invites him to stay at the Tuohy home for the night. What starts out as a gesture of kindness turns into something more as Michael becomes part of the Tuohy family despite the differences in their backgrounds.
Living in his new environment, the teen faces a completely different set of challenges to overcome. And as the family helps Michael fulfill his potential, both on and off the football field, Michael’s presence in the Tuohys’ lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own.

© 2010 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved

Locations:
Colchester
Brighton
Beckenham
Manchester Printworks
Derby
Exeter
Guildford
Lincoln
Richmond
Worcester
Maidstone
Kettering
Kingston upon Thames
Norwich
Streatham
Epsom
Muswell Hill
Swansea
Camden Town
Edinburgh Wester Hailes
Greenwich
London
Hatfield Galleria
Huddersfield
South Woodford
Southend on Sea
Surrey Quays
Bristol
Wimbledon
West Thurrock

Is it just me? Do your kids flush?

2010-03-09T11:43:17+00:00

OK, is it just me? Everytime I pass the loo in this house, there's, erm, you don't really need to know the details, but I need to flush. It happens so often that now I have developed AFR (automatic flush response).

Please humour me and take this quick survey.

Do your kids flush?

Click here to take survey

Thanks for indulging. I plan on writing a press release with the results. Am feeling giddy with the headline options.

Photo credit: bookgrl

I really wanted to like Motherhood

2010-03-08T07:18:29+00:00

I wanted to like the film/DVD Motherhood. I really did. All the elements were there -- a hassled mum with a seemingly slacker hubby, Uma Thurman AND Minnie Driver. And the main character is a mum blogger. A mum blogger! I should have loved it.

Well, I didn't and neither did the three other mums who watched it with me.

The overriding theme -- how much mums give up when they ditch work in order to stay home with the kids -- fell flat. It was a bit contrived and not very funny. Even Uma Thurman couldn't save this film. None of us could identify with the main character.

The best scene was in the beginning, when you live through the before school shuffle -- in fast forward. Eliza (Uma Thurman), of course, was doing everything, while dad (Anthony Edwards ... remember him from ER?) is sitting reading the paper. I could totally relate to that. And there were a couple of other humorous scenes at the play park -- a crunchy mum doing crying therapy with her son and the psycho mum that challenges Eliza when she reprimands psycho mum's son for being naughty on the playground. But that's about it.

I was disappointed the film barely touched on the complex world of mum blogging ... the most interesting scene being where Eliza shared one of her best friend's (Minnie Driver) most private moments online, and the rift that followed.

I didn't mind the film being slightly over the top (living in two rent controlled rooms in New York's West Village, the parking shuffles, dancing with the delivery man, etc). But I didn't feel like I had enough invested in Eliza's character when she "lost it" -- fleeing her daughter's 6th birthday party for the Lincoln Tunnel. I just sat there and thought "am I supposed to feel sorry for you?" It should have been a tearful moment, but oh well.

I'm sooooo glad I didn't see it in the cinema, though I would be happy to watch it on a 10-hour plane ride.

I know most of mumosphere was sent a free review copy of this ... so what did you think? Did you like it? Were my expectations too high?

Isn't that just the picture of motherhood?

2010-03-05T08:35:04+00:00

I've been asked to help highlight some of the best photos for the Hallmark Picture of Motherhood Competition (I know, I know, stranger things HAVE happened.) I'm sooooo disappointed my entry didn't make it (it's the one to the right -- of me with the three kids velocroed to various parts of my body.)

Anyhoos, the judging is Monday up in Bradford. I'm so bummed I can make it as I really wanted to meet fellow judge Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. I don't watch much television, but I think I have seen every episode of Changing Rooms (remember that show? The one where the designers were tasked with re-doing a room for under £500 ... as in OMG, I can't believe they actually used the cardboard from old packing boxes for flooring?!)

But I need your help ... I have all the finalist photos here ... take a look, there are some fab ones below... which one do you think encompasses motherhood? (no snarky remarks please).

Picture of Motherhood short-listed entries:

Over 18 Category

1. Miriam Owen
Description: Because it captures the vulnerability and beauty of Motherhood in an understated way that makes you think.

2. Amanda Firth
Description: There is nothing more beautiful than a mother and daughter laughing together.

3. Donna Evans
Description: This image represents memories and Halcyon days. A Mother and child enjoying a day at the seaside.

4. Penny Baird
Description: The smile between mother and baby captures the ‘picture of motherhood’

5. Colette Mellor
Description: ‘A Mother’s love…is a lifelong love’ My photo represents motherhood lasting a lifetime and I need my FANTASTIC mum as much now as I did when I was a child

6. Jenny Downing
Description: A Mother protecting her child from the heat of the midday sun…Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Under 18 Category

7. Charlotte Frank (age 17)
Description: My Mum is my best-friend. Here she is with my sister and myself last summer on holiday that she saved for so that we could all go and be together!

8. Elizabeth Johnson (age 14)
Description: Mother and child gaze out to see together, who knows what is on the horizon.

9. Alice Curtis (age 14)
Description: Mum’s make everything FUN!

10. Heather Smart (age 17)
Description: I took this image to portray the magical bond between mother and child, and the importance of motherhood which I think deserves to be recorded.

11. Claudia Bish (age 14)
Description: My image shows Mother, Child and nature. It shows the simplest things in life are the best, for instance having the chance to bond with your Mum.

12. Umera Noreen (age 16)
Description: The photograph symbolises a mother never lets go of her children, because Mothers are caring and responsible.

So which are your favourites?

On making Buzzy Bees with Annabel Karmel

2010-03-04T07:25:56+00:00

This is a sponsored post

So .... I went to this blogger event in London, put on by Cereal Partners UK for Nestle Wholegrain Cereals. Traffic was bad and I arrived about an hour late. As I walked up to the Georgian House, I reached into the caverns of my bag in search of a mint. Rummaging around I found, oh, what's that? A gumi bear? Ouch! What the blank is that? I pulled out the name badge from the last blogger event.

Thank God some nice person handed me a steaming cup of coffee as soon as I arrived. I was just getting my barrings (spotting fellow bloggers NixdMinx, Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy, Who's the Mummy, A Mother's Rambling and Suburban Mummy) when I turned round to stare straight down at a waif of a woman with a big smile and equally big blond tresses. She said hello. This woman looked way too finished to be a mum blogger. Then the light went off.

OMG, you're Annabel Karmel! I blurted out. I remembered something about her in the email from the PR agency, and wished I had actually read the brief. It must be her, she looked exactly like the little photo in the back of all those cook books. Only smaller. Tiny. Like Minnie Mouse, with blond hair. My mouth felt dry.

ANNABEL KARMEL. For those of you who don't know, she's an icon in mummy world. When my girls were babies, you HAD to have Feeding Your Baby And Toddler, along with a Mamas and Papas pram and a Baby Bjorn carrier. I'm convinced my oldest will eat almost anything because I had a freezer full of Annabel-inspired homemade purees like sweet potato, carrot and broccoli and apricot and semolina.

"You're small," was all I could manage to eek out. The poor woman must be used to tongue-tied middle-aged mums blurting out the obvious.

"Not small -- Petite," and then Annabel took my hand and led me over to the Aga and said we were going to make Buzzy Bees. OMG, I thought I had died and gone to kids cookery heaven. I felt like I was about to jump into one of her toddler cook books, and navigate our way around mini pizzas, heart shaped chicken nuggets and jelly boats (I've done them all).

I immediately thought of my lipstick, and how by the end of the morning and after all that coffee it was probably faded (why I thought Annabel Karmel would care about my lipstick is beyond me). Annabel showed me a sample of what we were going to make. Basically a bee shape made out of crushed Shreddies.

I mumbled something about how my girls would Iove these, and then just stood there awkwardly. Annabel handed me Shreddies in a zip lock bag and a rolling pin. I took the bag, still in my self-induced trance. We both smiled.

Then it dawned on me. You idiot she wants YOU to crush the Shreddies with the rolling pin. So, aided by Sally, we melted butter, mini marshmallows and peanut butter. I don't think Sally was in the same trance I was in. The result was a sticky goo that could be used by the country's best builders. We formed them into little balls, put on two Shreddies for wings, then used black and yellow icing to make stripes. And that's how I made Buzzy Bees with Annabel Karmel.

I made it back in time for school pickup and told anyone who would listen that I just met ANNABEL KARMEL, as really only those at the school gate would understand the significance. When we finally got home, and I passed our hall mirror, I realised how silly it was for me to be worried about my lipstick. In the rush to get the girls to school and out the door, I had actually forgotten to put on ANY makeup. Nothing. Nada. Not a shreddie. Oh well, you look at the photo and let me know what you think. Did I look OK?

Shreddies Buzzy Bees

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooling time: 20 minutes
Makes: 8 bees = 4 servings

Per serving of two bees with fruit
134 kcal 7% GDA)
1.9g fat (3% GDA)
0.6g saturates (3% GDA)
18.4 sugars (22% GDA)
0.1g salt (3% GDA)

Wholegrain servings: ½ serving

Ingredients

40g Shreddies
25g mini marshmallows
1 tsp smooth peanut butter (you can leave this out if anyone has allergies)
Half tsp of butter
To decorate
16 Shreddies for wings
20g black writing icing for the strips
10g yellow writing icing for the strips
Fruit
2 clementines cut into slices
4 strawberries cut into slices
1 large kiwi fruit, peeled and cut into slices

1. Put the Shreddies into a freezer bag and crush them using a rolling pin. Put the marshmallows, peanut butter and butter in a small saucepan and melt, stirring over a medium low heat (be a bit patient here!). Tip in the Shreddies and mix together.
2. Divide into 8 portions and shape into balls with one end slightly flatter and wider. Whilst the mixture is still warm, insert the wings by making a small hole with a knife and pressing in one whole Shreddies for each wing. Stick the bee bodies on the end of a wooden stick.
3. Leave to cool and firm up.
4. Finally draw eyes with the black writing icing and make bee stripes using the black and yellow writing icing.
5. Serve the Shreddies Buzzy Bees standing up in a glass with fruit on sticks such as slices of clementines, strawberries and kiwi.

There are other recipestoo: Apple and Berry Cheerios Bars, Mini Lemon Cheerios Cheesecakes, Crunchy Shredded Wheat Salmon Fishcakes, and Summer Spicy Shredded Wheat Kebabs. Go wholegrain crazy!

Why you won't get rich by mum blogging

2010-03-01T06:31:54+00:00

My friend Liz sent an interesting article my way ... one by The Brazen Careerist about being realistic about making money from your blog.

Before you head over there to read that (excellent) post, let me set you straight right now: THERE IS NO REAL MONEY IN MUMMY BLOGGING.

Let me rephrase that in case you blinked or didn't understand my accent: If you choose to turn your mummy blog into a commercial enterprise, you will earn, hold on to your hats ladies, upwards of couple grand a year. Gasp.

The people who make real money from advertising on their blogs - as in you would consider quitting your day job if you had a day job - are the ones with high traffic sites. I'm not talking 25k monthly page views. No, you need more like a million page views a month. A MILLION. EACH MONTH.

How about a book deal you may ask, surely you can get rich with a book deal? I heard Lucy Cavendish speak at a literary event last year, and she pointed out there's the small issue that a novel takes at least a (very intense) year to write and after everyone takes their bit, you get around £30-40k. For a year of blood, sweat and tears!? No, novels are a labour of love too.

Many advertising options for blogs are based on traffic. My guess is that the average UK mum blog gets about 5-25k pageviews a month, which will earn anywhere between £5 - £50. Of course you could always go for Google Adsense. I earned £16.97 last year! I didn't even bother to claim it. Running your own text links and banner ads is an option. They usually go for £80 - £120 a year. A YEAR.

Some mum bloggers are invited to review products. You may open your email one morning to find a very kind invitation to review the MOTHERHOOD DVD (which will retail for around £16.) If you are good at it, you may even be asked to review more things. Things that you probably don't really need. You could fill a whole house full of this stuff, and open your hall closet to an avalanche of Baby Annebelles, Blu-ray DVDs and advent calendars, have prams multiplying in your garage, and a whole office full of cereal, self-filling into bowls.

OK, so I'm glossing over the FEEL GOOD factor. Yes, it is nice to get compensation -- any type of compensation -- for doing something you love, WITHIN SCHOOL HOURS. It's nice to be told your opinions are valuable. But hour per hour, I could make more money, as Penelope says, flipping burgers.

The upside is that blogging CAN lead to other more lucrative opportunities: writing contracts, consulting, heck you may even decide to put on a mum blogger conference. But you are never EVER going to pay your mortgage by mummy blogging. There are small bits to be made here and there, but please keep it in perspective. Write a personal blog because you like to do it. Because you like to connect with others that love to blog. Because you like the camaraderie and support and the feeling of joy when you find out you're not the only one with a baby that fills a nappy with green poo or that someone else actually hated breastfeeding.

So what do you think? Are you making any money from your blog? I'd love you to prove me wrong and to hear some success stories.

Photo credit: fishy fish

The blog nightmare

2010-02-25T12:40:07+00:00

OK, this is proof I need a break.

Last night I woke up around 3 am. The sheets slightly were damp. My heart dancing in my throat. It was all so real.

My worry? I had a blog somewhere that I needed to update. I just couldn't find it. I couldn't remember what clever name I had christened it. Tired Mummies? No. Mummies on the run? No. Mums Need Drugs? No. No. No.

Oh, where was it? I knew it must be in need of a new post and it must be time to respond to comments. Where, where, where?

I often have these kinds of nightmares. When I was at University, I waited on tables to help pay my way. Then I used to have waitress nightmares. The same scene would play over and over in my mind -- my whole section was seated at the same time and everyone ordered teas and soup. Loads of tables with small children and frantic mothers asking for something for the kids and I had to explain that we had run out of saltine crackers.

See ya'll Monday!

PS -- this is a recycled post!

Photo credit: MaiseTora