Is that t-shirt too small?

I've written before on this blog that I'm a big fan of the cinema.

I regularly ditch work for an afternoon to sneak off to see a movie, and I love going to the cinema on my own, especially on a quiet afternoon, when you might get a whole screen to yourself. Thanks to the frankly brilliant Odeon loyalty card, I usually have enough points to take Flea to the cinema a couple of times a month, and she's now a cinema fan in her own right.

The result is that I've seen more kids' movies than you can shake a stick at. And oh my goodness, some of the rubbish that is seen as deserving of a nationwide theatrical release! 

Honestly, this isn't me being snooty. I get that there will be films that I don't enjoy but which are perfectly pitched for a young audience. Let's face it, there has to be some kind of explanation for the fact that there are TWO sequels to Alvin and the Chipmunks. And some kids films are genuinely brilliant - I think Hugo is one of the finest movies of 2011, full stop. 

But there is a whole raft of children's films entirely lacking in charm, humour or even a basic narrative structure. There are cheap, churned out animations - Gnomeo and Juliet, Mars Needs Moms. Then the live-action "star" vehicles - Mr Poppers' Penguins, The Smurfs. And the endless sequels without purpose - Spy Kids 4, anyone?

Sometimes the nicest thing I can say about a film is that I had a lovely snooze. In fact, when I saw the trailer of Cars 2 on TV recently, bits of it were completely new to me, despite the fact we'd seen it at the cinema twice. 

So, my hopes were not sky high this weekend when we were given free tickets to go and see The Journey 2: Mysterious Island. It's billed as an adventure story, and stars Vanessa "I was in High School Musical" Hudgens, and Dwayne "You might remember me from The Tooth Fairy" Johnson. There's some teenage boy in it, but he's new to me. 

But actually - it's really not bad. 

The story is based around the mysterious island written about by Jules Verne, and includes some nice references to classic adventure stories and legends. It's a bit like a cross between Jurassic Park, Zathura and Percy Jackson. 

In this film, a  teenage boy goes in search of a mysterious island to find his long-lost grandfather, taking along his stepfather for the ride. Along the way he meets a beautiful teenage girl wearing a t-shirt that appears to be two sizes too small (I knew I'd become officially middle-aged when I started to notice such things). The girl initially isn't interested in the boy at all, and is quite interestingly independent and sparky, but eventually she comes to her senses. Obviously. 

Anyway, there are giant monsters, insects, caves, underwater rescues, submarines, helicopters and volcanoes - and in 3D there are some nice jump scares that got Flea bouncing in her seat. There's the odd bit of questionable green-screen CGI but overall the effects are well done, and the story is exciting enough to keep little ones entertained. At six, I'd say Flea is about the right age for this film. 

I think Journey 2 is a great option for half-term if you want a step up from the usual animated children's fare - and one of the very few films where I'd say it's maybe even worth forking out for a 3D ticket. Recommended. But Vanessa, poppet? You might want to get a new t-shirt that actually fits for the next movie. 

Disclosure: We were given vouchers by Warner Bros to attend the film, and buy popcorn. Opinions are my own.  

Is it just me or is it getting all kinds of sappy round here?

Lately, I can’t seem to venture online without being broadsided by yet another heart-warming homily about how friends are like diamonds and sparkle in the sun, or love is like a washing machine and there’s always room for one more sock.

Honestly, you can’t turn around on Pinterest without bumping into some barely coherent poster urging you to be inspired and live your passion and capture your dreams.

I can’t capture my dreams. I’ve got British Gas coming to serve the boiler, three features to write, and then I’m going to watch Gossip Girl. 

And have you ever seen The Notebook Twitter account?  Gross. People keep retweeting it into my timeline, like some kind of saccharine-fuelled projectile vomit.  “They say the world was built for two, only worth living if someone is loving you.”

It’s just wrong.

We’re all old enough to know this claptrap bears no relation to real life. Love breaks down, friendship is largely a function of geographic and social expedience, and most people can’t get through a day without at least one evil thought passing through their mind.

And most of us don't actually like the sentimental chit-chat. Not really. Honestly, if people talked like this in real life we’d cross the street to avoid them. Most of us would adopt a fake identity and move to South America, if necessary. Especially if we’re British. Sentimentality makes most British people itch. We like gentle sarcasm and Monty Python.

But online it’s a different story. On the Internet, we’re spouting the kind of sentiment that would make a Care Bear blush. What’s it all about?

Part of me wonders if it’s the recession. During tough times sentimentality is a useful way of smoothing out some of life’s rough edges, and reminding us that there are moments of beauty if you look for them.

But another (more cynical) part of me wonders if it’s just showing off. Look at my wonderful friends, my just-so status updates and my perfectly Instagram-ed photos. And look at my big, beating, sentimental heart that’s just brimming over with goodness. I’m such an awesome person.  

What do you think?  

Personally, I’m Northern. And while I like to think I'm generally a pretty good person, sometimes (just sometimes) the sentiment in my heart looks a bit more like this: 

So, remember when I was ranting about the new LEGO Friends range for girls, and demanding to know when LEGO would get with the programme and make some cool LEGO?

The universe heard my plea.

The lovely people at Idealo know a thing or two about LEGO models and sent me what has to be the coolest LEGO set ever.

Look at this beauty. Okay, I know it costs £80 which is quite a lot of money, but you do get a lot for your pennies.

For starters, there are something like 1,300 bricks and the construction is a fair bit more challenging than the LEGO sets we’ve tried previously.  It says Age 16+ on the box, but with supervision it’s perfectly suitable for children younger than that.

I built this with Flea and her two cousins (aged 6 and 9) and it took us a week, spending an hour or two each evening on the project. My sister-in-law admits that she sometimes got a bit carried away, building while the kids were in bed, then having to undo her work before they woke up the next morning! 

Once complete, the camper van has opening doors and windows, an authentic engine in the boot and lovely interior details including a camping table, a tiled floor, pop-up roof, curtains at the windows and (my niece’s favourite) retro surfing posters on the walls.

The model is pretty sturdy, if you want to keep it intact, and is currently occupying pride of place at the other Whittle household.

What did the kids make of it? More fun that regular LEGO, and a little harder to build, but this set is absolutely great for a family to build together.

The camper van, on the other hand? I don’t think I’m ever getting THAT back – and who can blame her? 

I’ve been ranting (I know – big news, right?) recently about toys.

But that’s only because I think toys – and play – are so important to children. In a world where everything is measured and so many products, services and activities are geared towards capturing our kids from the earliest ages and turning them into tiny consumerist worker bees, I'm always looking for toys that just let children be. 

Pah. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I see absolutely no benefit in trying to teach a two-year-old pre-literacy skills or wondering about whether a toddler's got effective mathematical awareness. Just let kids play. The other stuff all comes in time. 

One of my favourite toy ranges, as regular readers will know, is Playmobil. These toys are entirely focused on letting children be immersed in imaginary play, and having a particularly imaginative child means we have invested in a lot of Playmobil in recent years. As Playmobil reviewers, we’ve also been many of the toys to try at home, and one of my all-time blogging highlights was visiting Playmobil HQ in Germany. 

Last week, Playmobil invited us to attend the Toy Fair in London, which is an opportunity to see what the toy industry has planned for 2012, including new ranges from all the big toy manufacturers.

There were a couple of sets I don’t personally think are for us. The new fairy castle is very expensive, (although it comes with furniture) and it is absolutely enormous. I also was unconvinced by the new retro-styled Western set – it’s absolutely adorable, but I’m not sure Flea knows about cowboys and Indians, and would want to play with this sort of set. That sentence makes me feel very, very old.

However, I did think a lot of the new Playmobil for 2012 was very exciting. Some of my top recommendations that will be available in shops between now and October include:

The Future Planet Range

This is a new range based on the idea of eco-rangers who live in a future world where energy is provided through mysterious crystals.  The crystals power lights in the buildings, make vehicles work, and instruments glow in the science lab. There are baddies who can try and steal the crystals and all sorts of neat technical wizardry. Especially loved the turbo-jet spacecraft and landing station, and the e-Ranger headquarters.

Collectibles

Playmobil is going head to head with other companies providing pocket-money ranges, and 2012 will see a new set of the collectible figures, but also collectible sets of figures with horses and figures with motorcycles (very cool indeed). I love this kind of thing for taking to birthday parties – not too expensive (they’ll retail from around £3 to £10) and they’re not going to make another Mum roll her eyes at the thought of giving some piece of tat house room.

Sports-themed Playmobil

With a summer of sport, Playmobil have ramped up their offerings to include a load of single figures based on different sports – everything from judo to swimming and weightlifting. Alongside this is a brilliant folding football pitch that includes a goal, score board and football players – as well as a stretcher and medical team for inevitable injuries! I love that this is really big when kids play with (at a metre long) but folds up to keep everything inside when not in use. And you can buy players in colours matching most of the major international teams, too.

Also worth looking out for: the nifty little red sports car in the new harbour range (available this month), the brand new pirate set complete with a memory-game to unlock treasure caves, the new large rally cars that have swappable body panels, engines and special features, and a brand new stone age, complete with a mammoth skeleton that kids can build. 

One of the benefits of having pets, along with adding a cute companion to the family, is that they provide an opportunity for children to learn, first hand, about the cycle of life. Things are born, they live, they die. And in the case of hamsters, it can be a tragically short circle.

Mr Hamster was a present for Flea’s six birthday last autumn, and Flea fell in love at first sight. Now, from a parent's perspective, I'd have to say hamsters aren't great pets. They sleep all day, they don’t like being touched, or held, and they have a remarkably efficient bowel system. 

But Flea loved Mr Hamster. 

So much so that, on Friday, when her best friend came for a sleepover on Friday, they headed straight fo the utility room to give him some treats. “Mummy, he won’t come out of his cage,” Flea complained.

"I'm sure he's fine. I fed him this morning, he's probably just sleeping," I called from the kitchen. 

The girls dropped some chocolate drops into the cage, outside Mr Hamster's bed. Which is where they still were today when I woke up and realised Mr Hamster hadn't been out of his sleeping hole since Friday morning. 

I rattled the cage gently. I tipped it up to look inside the bedding area to see if the bedding was moving. Nope. Sometimes he snores, so I put my ear next to the cage. Dead silence. 

Bugger. Mr Hamster is dead.

Obviously, I did what all modern, independent women do in such situations. I rang my ex-husband.

“The bloody hamster’s dead.”

A plan was hatched that when my ex brought Flea home this evening, he would go into the kitchen and dispose of the corpse (touching a dead hamster not being on my list of things to do before I die) and I would take Flea upstairs and break the news to her.

Fast forward to 6pm and I sat down on Flea’s bed. “I have some sad news, darling,” I began.

There followed an absolute textbook breaking of the news moment where I reassured Flea that Mr Hamster had a very happy life, and was probably in Hamster Heaven, and yes, we'd buy a new hamster next week, to live at Daddy's house. 

"Can we go and see how Mr Hamster is doing?" Flea whispered, tears on her cheeks. 

"Well, no, poppet, because he's dead," I replied, thinking: Also, your Dad is probably popping him in the outside bin as we speak. 

Flea shed a few tears, we had a lovely cuddle and I congratulated myself on another textbook parenting moment - with the added bonus of transferring future hamster ownership to the ex. Bonus! 

We headed downstairs to find my ex standing in the dining room, a look of smug triumph on his face. "Not going to be applying for a job as a CSI any time soon, are you?" he sniggered. 

All I can say is someone could have WARNED me that hamsters can sleep for three days at a time. Who knew? 

This month, the Tots100 Book Club invited ten bloggers to share their favourite books with the world, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to share one of my new favourite novels with my blog readers.

You know you’ve found a new favourite book when you feel sad when you’re getting towards the end of the story. And then there’s that exciting moment of realising it’s part of a series – and you end up devouring all the books in a week.

That’s JUST how I felt about Twilight.

Just kidding.

But it is how I felt about The Hunger Games, another young adult fiction series, which tells the tale of a teenage girl Katniss, who is thrown into a government-sponsored gladiatorial competition called The Games, where she must fight other children to the death, until only one is left standing.

I loved The Hunger Games because it has some smart observations about reality TV, fashion and beauty. It's inescapably violent and chilling, a cocktail of Lord of the Flies, the Handmaid's Tale, Running Man and Big Brother.

The Hunger Games trilogy is, on one level, a love story, but this is no sparkly story of sappy adoration, and it's certainly not sexy, or titillating. Instead, Katniss is fiercely independent and about as far from ‘needy’ as it’s possible to get.

And she kicks ass- literally and in gruesome detail. Rather than relying on ‘traditional female strengths’ to survive, Katniss physically overpowers, outmanoeuvres and destroys her opponents – there’s a fair bit of violence in the books, but it never feels gratuitous. 

The Tots100 Book Club is about sharing stories, and so we’ll be sending a copy of all the recommended books to other bloggers, who will in turn share their own favourite books with the community. I’d like to recommend The Hunger Games to Merry at Patch of Puddles because I hope she’ll enjoy it – and so will her girls! 

• You're late for the school run because you can only find one school PE trainer. And then when you get home, the trainer turns out to be inside the washing machine. Because, like, where else would a trainer be?
• The dentist tells you that only 10% of patients get an abscess after a wisdom tooth extraction, and only 10% of those people also develop weird scar tissue on their gum that stops them talking properly, and practically nobody then comes out in hives as an allergy to the antibiotic, so in a way you’re actually very special. Lucky you.
• Your daughter corrects you when you tell her teacher the name of Voldemort’s snake and adds, “Mummy wouldn’t know anyway, she’s always falling asleep."
•  The energy company phones to tell you it has proactively appointed a legal advisor because your power bill is so high – but they can’t tell you how high, exactly.
• You realise that £500 an hour bill from the barrister didn’t include VAT.
• You take a shower and run into your room wearing the only clean towel in the bathroom, which happens to be a hand towel, and try to quickly close the curtains, only to pull down the ENTIRE sodding curtain rail.

And most of all, you know it’s a bad day when…

• Moments after pulling down the curtain rail, while you’re standing, basically naked at your window, backlit by a 60-watt bulb, you notice that the next door neighbour (also known as your child’s deputy headmaster) has just pulled up and got out of his car.

Brilliant.

Tomorrow’s another day, right? And in the meantime, there are pictures of kittens to be looking at. 

This isn’t one of those moaning posts.

Honest.

I love my job, I love my friends, I have the best kid in the world (imho), life is really very exciting, and optimistic and all sorts of good things at the moment.

But..

I keep finding my mind drifting to open spaces. Wide skies. Cold, fresh air that catches at the back of your throat. I want to watch the morning sunlight rippling across open water, and to lie back and hear nothing but the wind in the trees and the birds in the sky. Peace!

I imagine running my fingers over rough bark, feeling leaves and pebbles under my feet. I want to stand at the edge of water and jump back before it soaks through my boots. I want to watch the steam rising out of a flask of hot chocolate, and sit in peace with my best friend, doing nothing more than watching the world go by and waiting for the moment the sun sinks into the water.

Life gets so hectic sometimes, doesn’t it?

From the moment I wake up, I’m connected to something. There’s email and Twitter and my mobile, and instant messaging, and Skype and phone calls, and the postman at the door, and a courier package to be collected.

There’s the school run, the traffic, the parking – I sometimes wonder how much time each week I devote to the (highly) imperfect art of parking. 

This weekend, I visited my parents, and was thrilled that my Mum had found one of my old photo albums on the top shelf of a cupboard. There are dozens of photos - lots of thrilling fashion choices from the 1980s, but also stacks of my favourite photos, taken on various trips overseas.

I think the album got mislaid, during the divorce, when I was moving house. Having it back feels like being reunited with an old friend. I’ve taken some of these photos to the printers to have enlarged and hung over my desk. It’s not quite the same, though.  

Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is finding the time to do nothing at all.

It’s fair to say that I’m not a domestic goddess. I burn dinner as often as I serve it successfully, and my lunchtime repertoire tends to extend as far as toast and, erm, more toast.

The world of PR has, to be fair, made some sterling efforts to get me cooking over recent months.

First up, Morphy Richards sent me a slow cooker, along with some cooking sauces from Schwartz. It was not a resounding success. The sauces were a bit too synthetic for my tastes and when you have a child who doesn’t “do” sauces, then cooking for one in a slow cooker is a bit of a challenge. I have to say, in my experience, cooked casseroles don’t come out of the freezer looking good.

I’ve received George Foreman grills (very useful for toasted sandwiches) and two air fryers, along with a very lovely selection of cheeses.

But I still can’t cook.

Mostly, I’ve come to terms with this lack of culinary ability.

But one area where I’m uniformly awful is breakfast.

We Whittle women love our beds, and my usual morning looks a bit like this:

8am: alarm goes off. Hit snooze.

8.00am: See above

8.10am: See above

8.20am: Alarm goes off. Daily call of, “Flea? Flea? Time to get dressed.”  Doze off.

8.30am: Wake up to find small child, standing, Midwich Cuckoo style, 2 inches from the bed.

Haul ass out of bed. Put on jeans and jumper. Find boots.

8.35am: Stumble downstairs, pour cereal into cup, give to small child. Brush child’s hair at back door.

8.40am: Get into car.

8.50am: Arrive at school, usually 1 minute late.

9am: Stop at Caffe Nero to pick up large coffee.

9.10am: Home from school, look at email.

9.15: Have a super quick look at Twitter.

9.20: Check Facebook

9.30: Ooh, should probably check email again. Repeat last three steps 50 times.  

11am: Realise I haven’t yet had breakfast. Just send a quick email first.

11.45am: Realise still haven’t had breakfast. Decide it’s probably better to just wait for lunch.

The net result of this is that, 90% of the time, I don’t eat breakfast. Which is rubbish, I know. It’s bad for my metabolism and energy levels – I’m permanently exhausted in the morning, partly because I go to bed far too late, but also because I’m not consuming much apart from caffeine before 1pm.

Anyway, once again the World of PR is shouting at me to pull my socks up with a ‘Breakfast Week Challenge’ which seems to involve a lot of cereal-based items. This weekend a hamper filled with breakfast products was delivered from the people at Farmhouse Breakfast, and I’ve committed to trying to have breakfast every day for a week.

Now, if I can just work out which one is the porridge and which one is the muesli, I’ll be all set. 

[You can win £1,000 of holiday vouchers over on the Breakfast Challenge Facebook page, by taking your own week-long breakfast challenge] 

Lisa over at The Mummy Whisperer has blogged recently about a campaign to persuade women to ditch the bitch, and stick together.

I want to love this idea. Certainly, I love the sentiment of it. I think anything that celebrates people being respectful and truthful and decent is unquestionably a good thing.

But I don’t love the campaign. Not completely.

For starters, I tend to think most women are pretty supportive and non-judgmental. I think most people are that way. And I definitely think most parent bloggers are that way. Maybe I’m mixing in all the wrong circles, but I can’t remember the last time I read a post on a parent blog that was "slagging off" another parent.

Like Rosie, I question the need for a campaign of this kind. Because if I was getting slagged off, I'm fairly confident that other parent bloggers would be helping pick me up and dust me off. 

I also don’t love something that perpetuates an outdated myth that women are somehow wired differently to men, which makes them more bitchy, more judgemental, more ruthless. I find it a bit sad that women are perpetuating the idea that there's an epidemic of bitching and sniping in parenting, or blogging. Because - honestly - I don't see it. I don't think it's there. 

That's not to say it never happens. I've dealt with women who have taken my breath away with their capacity for ruthlessness and bitching and sniping. But I've had the same sort of experiences with men. There will always be people treating each other badly - because they're hurt, or upset, or defensive, or they're just not Good People. But they're probably not behaving badly because they have breasts. 

Ultimately, a campaign that presents judgement and bitching as somehow a "women's problem" seems counterproductive to me. I think something more inclusive, about blogging with respect, would be a better idea. 

I believe in being decent to people, and treating them as you’d like to be treated.

I believe in forming your own opinions of people, not basing them on gossip.

I believe in trying to respect other points of view even when you don’t agree with them.

I just don't believe those ideals only apply to women.

What do you think?