Monkey Music – the UK’s premium music group for pre-school children – has recorded a special charity song to celebrate an amazing summer of sport. Performed by young children, aged 7, 8 and 9, and written especially for Monkey Music, the Anthem, ‘The Day is Here!’, tells the exciting story of a running race.

‘The Day is Here’ will not only provide a fun sporting interlude during Monkey Music classes across the UK but also, by selling it online to the families and friends of Monkey Music’s 10,000 children, Monkey Music also aims to raise much needed funds for music therapy charity, Nordoff Robbins.

Nordoff Robbins is a national specialist music charity, delivering 50,000 music therapy sessions a year to a broad range of people in schools, hospitals and care homes across the UK. Their qualified music therapists specifically help people with a range of challenges including autism, dementia, mental health problems, stroke, brain injury, learning difficulties, depression and in some cases clients have threatening or terminal illness, such as cancer.

Angie Coates, Founder of Monkey Music, said;

“Both Monkey Music and Nordoff Robbins offer children fresh opportunities and life changing experiences through music. We believe that by working together we can raise awareness of the benefits of music for everyone. It’s lovely to use 2012 and the summer of sport to engage the very youngest of children in the excitement of sport and the joy of music.”

Jo Carter, Director of Fundraising & Communications Nordoff Robbins said:

“We are delighted to be working with Monkey Music, to be sharing our mutual believe in the power of music and to help raise funds to continue transforming the lives of vulnerable children and adults across the UK. As a charity we rely entirely on voluntary donations, so the Monkey Music song released this summer is a great way to raise funds and awareness.”

What’s next?

Monkey Music classes will learn ‘The Day is Here’ during their Monkey Music classes over the coming weeks. On May 18th ‘The Day is Here’ will be officially released and available to buy online with all profits going to charity.

SCIENCE HAS NEVER BEEN SO HORRIBLE

Based on the bestselling books by Nick Arnold, Horrible Science kits are all about discovery, in loads of horribly fantastic ways. With these kits learning is fun. Kids can try their hand at weird and wonderful experiments, discover nasty nature, create chemical chaos and eerie eyeballs.

Our Horrible Science range brings science to life with the squishy stuff left in. These kits allow children to try their hand at weird and wonderful experiments, discovering space, stars and slime while learning without noticing.

If your kids are into space then they will absolutely love this prize. Galt are giving away, not one, not two but THREE of their Horrible Science Kits. So here is what one lucky reader will win

- Horrible Science Space, Stars and Slimy Aliens Kit

RRP £10.99, Suitable for 8+

Out of this world experiments! Make an awesome asteroid, create a potty planetarium and mould a slimy Snotty. Learn how mind-blowingly big the solar system is. Contents: Star Show card pieces, torch, glue, asteroid mould, pot and crystals, Slobslime mould, pot of ready-made slime, wiggly eyes, glow planet wall stickers, 16-page Top Secret Lab Notebook.

- Horrible Science Smashing Solar System Jigsaw

RRP £8.99, Suitable for 8+

300-piece jigsaw puzzle based on Scholastic’s bestselling books written by Nick Arnold and illustrated by Tony De Saulles. One of a range of puzzles featuring Horrible scenes of the solar system with Oddblob the alien, the world’s most dangerous animals and the human body with famously mad scientist, Baron Frankenstein. Each jigsaw includes an 8-page Loony Leaflet stuffed full of foul facts. Science with the squishy bits in pieces!

- Horrible Science Shocking Rocket

RRP £5.99, Suitable for 8+

Make a water-fuelled rocket, defy gravity and learn how rockets blast off into space and other shocking rocket facts. Contents: plastic rocket, nose cone, fins, rubber stopper, valve, stickers, sticky tape and ‘Horrible Info’ leaflet.

If you’d like to win this fantastic prize then entry is via the rafflecopter widget below. There is one compulsory entry and the others are entirely optional. The competition will end on Sunday 10th June. Good luck x

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Thank goodness that after about an hour he suddenly clicked and the smiles appeared. By bedtime he was smiling, playing and back to his normal self. I noticed an immediate difference in how he played and looked at things, he spent ages studying in detail his toys which up to today must have all been in soft focus

Yesterday, Wednesday was his first full day of wearing his glasses. It started with him crying until I put his glasses on in the morning. He seems to have realised that they help him to see and has stopped trying to take them off. He is definitely happier whilst wearing them

We took him to nursery where his carers all said how cute he looked in his glasses. He was wearing a neoprene sunglasses strap on them to keep them in place as I thought this would help initially until he got used to them and stopped trying to take them off.

When I picked him up from nursery I was expecting them to say he had been tired, his ears were sore or something similar but apparently he had been fantastic all day. Happy, smiling, playing and the only time he complained was when they took them off him to go to sleep. I am so relieved he has adapted so quickly

Bath time was interesting as he was grumpy about not being able to wear his glasses in the bath, he can’t can he? What do other people do, let them wear them in the bath? Bedtime went smoothly and I’d say the only time I noticed anything negative was from midnight onwards when the fun really started!

At midnight MasterB was crying so I got him up, put his glasses on, gave him a bottle and put him back to bed. At 1 MasterB was crying again so I got him up, gave him nurofen as I though he might have a headache from wearing glasses all day. No joy, he just didn’t want to sleep. This continued until 3:45am. He seemed fine, very tired but he just couldn’t switch off. I think he had taken in so much during the day his brain was just on hyper mode and he couldn’t sleep bless him. I’m desperately hoping we don’t have a repeat of that tonight and that he sleeps better.

This morning I left him at nursery without the strap holding his glasses on, he has made no attempt to take them off so I thought the sooner we can ditch the strap the better. His carer has it in her pocket just in case she thinks he needs it.

Oh and I’m thinking by the weekend we will be having our first trip back to the opticians to get the frames straightened. They were very bent and twisted after just one day (whoops) but we straightened them out ourselves but I reckon another couple of days and they will need fixing. I’m really hoping that we aren’t going to destroy a pair a week!

I think I’m getting used to seeing him in glasses, it’s strange as he looks so different but the same if that makes sense. He’s still my cute little baby but now he also looks older and more intelligent. I was worried he would look silly and people would laugh at him but I think he suits them and looks pretty cute in them.

“Emma and Llewelyn are world travellers, and the founders of The Buddha Beauty Company. Drawing inspiration from the many lands they have visited, with a particular admiration for the exotic spas of Thailand and the Far East, the Buddha Beauty Company was born after more than a decade of voyaging the globe. Since its conception, the Company has developed an elegant range of skincare products and home fragrances that are natural and authentic, effectual and delectably appealing.”

The Buddha Beauty Company are proud winners of 2011 Best Non-Food Vegan Retailer of The Year Award, their products are all vegetarian and vegan friendly, organic and not tested on cute little animals

I’ve been having a look at the products on their website and I have to admit I’m very jealous of this prize! I particularly like the look of the Organic Massage Candles and the Bath Bombs.

The Buddha Beauty Company have kindly agreed to give one of my lovely readers a gift set containing your choice of a cleanser, toner, body moisturiser and a couple of bath bombs. This would come to over £40 in value and make a fantastic treat for yourself or a gift for somebody special. Entry is through the Rafflecopter widget below, there is one compulsory entry of leaving a comment and the other entries are entirely optional. The competition will close on Sunday June 10th. Good luck xx

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Overall

I love blogging conferences for three main reasons,
1) I get a wee break away from my children
2) I get to catch up with friends and fellow bloggers and
3) I hopefully get to find out some useful information which will improve my blogging.

Cybher ticked all these boxes.

It was lovely to spend some time with my sister from This Mummy Loves as I haven’t seem her for ages, it was fantastic to finally meet the lovely Kara from Innocent Charms Chats and it was great to catch up with some familiar faces from Cybermummy last year and of course to meet some new faces.

I discovered that:
1) Apparently I have scary eyes and I should be a teacher as I have “the look”
2) Apparently nobody recognises me and I look nothing like my avatar on twitter (well either that or nobody follows me)
3) Apparently I’m very tall (ok so including my heels I was wearing I would have been 6’1″ so I’ll let them off for that one)

Goodies- I love the Cybher leather satchel we all received when we arrived, I opted for the blue one as it matched my dress and iPad case Of course it has now been stolen by MissB who is currently using it to carry her books around in The Palmers bag of goodies was very much appreciated as I have the driest skin imaginable (think mummy of the preserved Egyptian type). I also got Warhorse DVD and book from Disney which is fab as I love that film

The refreshment/sponsors lounge wasn’t too busy, there were plenty of refreshments available and we weren’t over powered with PRs and companies which was quite refreshing. I admit not all the companies were my cup of tea but there were a few I hope to work with in the future. Lunch was lovely, being veggie can always be hit or miss but there was plenty of veggie food and I’m a Brie addict so the Brie and onion marmalade sandwiches went down a treat

Sessions – my thoughts on the individual sessions are mentioned below. There were some areas I felt weren’t for me, I feel I’ve been overdosed on the whole follow/no follow issue recently so I switched off when this was being discussed. I know a lot of people found it useful though. I also admit that by the end of the day, hunger was winning so I ducked out before the end to go and get some dinner. The trouble with having young children is that I’m used to eating with them and so by 5:30 my stomach was screaming for food

Sessions

I attended the following sessions and this is what I thought about them:

Session 1: Nothing really appealed to me from this session so I spent the time drinking tea and chatting down in the refreshment area

Session 2: Imagery and Idea Generation for Bloggers on a Mission to be Brilliant with Jo Gilford
Unfortunately Jo couldn’t be there on the day but by the wonders of modern technology she still gave her talk. I found some useful ideas about using imagery in the blog and some great ideas for making my images prettier.

Session 3: Ask a WordPress Geek with Julie Hall
For me this was the session of the day. I felt I got loads out of it and I’ve been busy downloading recommended plug ins since I got home. As a WP self hosted blogger I’m often baffled by the amount of plug ins available so it was really useful to have some good ones recommended.

Session 4: if You’re Appy and You Know It with Biba To and Ryan Wenstrup Moore
I love apps so found this interesting as I’m always looking for new apps, I did already have a lot of the ones mentioned but found a couple that look good. Biba did great and I hope when MissB is 10 years old she has the confidence to talk on stage like Biba did

Session 5: Cheeky Chats with the Powder Room Girls
Now I personally went to this expecting a bit of fun and whilst the wine was appreciated, the session mainly consisted of them selling us their new web selling system which to be honest, if I’d known this was what they were going to talk about I wouldn’t have gone. The only “cheeky” part of the session was a game of vagingo which didn’t really work as there weren’t enough bags to go round so those of us at the back felt very much uninvolved. For me this was the worst session of the day which I got little out of.

All in all I had a lovely day and thanks so much to Sian from Geek is New Chic for organising it!

MasterB has always had a slightly wonky eye and I’d been hoping it would sort itself but finally when he reached one I decided it was time to get it checked out. I know now I should have gone sooner but I’d assumed as the health visitor never picked it up in any of their checks that it was ok. Next time I really will go on my instinct!

Now at the appointment I was expecting them to say, yes it’s a lazy eye and maybe talk about wearing a patch over his stronger eye to make him use his weak eye more and correct it. This is what I’d read on the Internet and spoke about with people on twitter.

What I wasn’t expecting was for them to tell me that they thought his vision was really bad and take me straight around to the optician to test his eyes. There I found out that his eyes are indeed really bad and he is very long sighted, he will need a prescription of 8.5 for each eye He needs glasses ASAP, I’ve ordered them and they should be here any day now.

Basically the reason his weak eye has turned in, is because if he tries to focus he gets double vision and so he has just stopped using it Hopefully with glasses he will start using it again and it will correct itself in time.

To be told when your baby is 15 months old that he has spent his life to date living in a blur is pretty heart breaking, to tell you the truth it really upset me. He probably doesn’t even know what I look like Of course it all makes perfect sense now. He has never shown any interest in books or toys which involve detailed actions, when he eats he doesn’t pick up small items he just scoops up whatever is in front of him. I’d been putting this down to him being a bit slow development wise with him being premature but if he couldn’t see then of course he’d be doing this. It may also explain why he hasn’t started walking yet, would you want to walk if you couldn’t see what’s in front of you?

I’ve had a few days for the news to sink in and get my head around it all now and I’m feeling better about it. After all it’s something that can be corrected immediately with glasses and the long term prognosis doesn’t have to mean a lifetime of glasses and poor eyesight. Let’s face it, when he is 18 who knows what advances there will have been in laser eye surgery. It’s great now but just image in another 17 years!! And as for glasses, well they are pretty fashionable really nowadays so it’s not that bad My main concerns are how on earth we are going to keep them on him and how many pairs we are going to get through in the next few months. I imagine we will be having frequent trips to the opticians to get them fixed

So here starts a brand new era in our family life, photos will now always have MasterB wearing glasses in them and who knows how he will react to being able to see! Life could get very interesting so stay tuned to see how we get on