Mum-e Blog

Little Princess number one woke up the other morning saying ‘I’m hot, my throat hurts, I can’t move, I feel sick.’ With that, she ran to the loo, threw up and then went back to bed. Her temperature was 40, Calpol didn’t seem to be helping and – of course – I was worried that it was the dreaded swine flu.
I went on to the government website where you can tick a few boxes about symptoms, and get prescribed Tamiflu. Scarily, it seemed she had way more of the elements you need to qualify. My daughter had swine flu.

But something didn’t feel right. She hasn’t been in contact with anyone with it. And anyway, I’ve read lots about Tamiflu and I was worried about giving it to her.
I called a doctor friend who advised me to get her examined by a doctor, rather than just use the website.
‘It could be anything,’ she told me. ‘Tamiflu has horrible side effects and it could be that she has toncilitis and needs antibiotics anyway, not Tamiflu at all.’
I was concerned that the local surgery wouldn’t see me, but they made us an immediate appointment, put us in an isolation room, and the doctor came to examine LP1.
‘It’s a throat virus,’ he said. ‘Well done for not just going down the Tamiflu route. It’s not necessary at all. And it can cause bad sickness as well as hallucinations that can be very scary for a child. Lots of fluids and Paracetemol and she’ll be fine in 24 hours.’
And she was.
Which got me thinking…is the government getting its swine flu figures from the number of Tamiflu prescriptions going out? If so, the numbers could be awfully wrong. I know at least half a dozen people who have taken it, none of whom saw a doctor first and who almost certainly didn’t have it at all – they recovered way too quickly.
So…my top tip for the day. If you think your child has Tamiflu, go to the doctor. The web is brilliantly useful in loads of ways. But for prescribing drugs to kids? I’d rather stick to the old fashioned way.

If you haven’t booked tickets for this yet you really should – it’s touring the UK. Brilliantly educational and entertaining for kids and adults – the animatronic dinosaurs are brilliant. I saw it in the States because I was writing a review and can genuinely say it’s a must see. It’s showing at loads of arenas around the country – including the O2 in August.

Today I am presenting a new regular slot on my blog. Every Monday, to start the week, two links to fabulous websites that make my chaotic life a little bit easier – and hopefully you’ll find them useful too. I’m calling the post Magic Monday.

So, here are today’s:

1. www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk
This is a great site for the summer holidays. Click on a county on the map, choose an age range and then loads of great places for outings come up, all colour coded under headings like Animals and Nature, Museum & Gallery, Waterfun and Play Centre. Click on your choice for more info. A really good range of places – not just the obvious one you’ve already heard of, and really quick and easy to use.

2. www.lakeland.co.uk
For every household gizmo you will ever need and more… I LOVE Lakeland. Who could not want one of these 3-in-1 Pineapple Corer/Slicer/Peelers? I certainly do. Along with an avocado slicer, fizzy drinks bottle stopper, chopper scraper and an apple juicer. And loads of other stuff. Just as fun to browse as it is to buy. And brilliant for presents.

Oh dear, another quandry.
My littlest daughter turns four in September and this morning we discussed what she would like for her birthday. ‘Everything the same as last year,’ she said, determinedly. ‘I want you to make me a Peppa Pig cake, I want Mr Marvel and I want it in that place near the park, please Mummy. But I want a different present please…this time I would like a DS.’
Her big sister was given a Nintendo DS for her fifth birthday. I took counsel from a friend who is a teacher who told me that actually hand held games consoles can be good for children because it makes them totally relaxed with technology. They are also quite good for hand-eye co-ordination. We are very strict about what games we allow her to have – not difficult actually, because she can’t read fluently yet so she is left with cute colouring-in and drawing programs. And she doesn’t actually play it very often, and she shares it quite nicely with her little sister, so I have no regrets.
But four? Is that too young? I mean, it would help on long journeys and she is starting to use computers at school from September, but still, it feels a bit wrong somehow.
All thoughts and advice really appreciated from other parents out there.
And even if you don’t want to comment, maybe you could vote in this poll:

I do like things that make me smile and feel less stressed rather than frown and swear.
Regular readers of my blog will know that I have slight issues with my sat nav. Obviously I love the fact that it gets me to places without me having to balance an A to Z on my knee, and it means the new South African au pair can drive around Middlesex like a native. But I do hate the woman’s smug voice – and I do hate it that she is always right and my husband loves her. But the thing I hate about it most of all is having to lick (or watch him lick) that sucker thing and slap it on to the windscreen. And then nearly jump out of my skin when I’m driving at 70mph and it falls on to the dashboard with a thwack. If you’ve ever seen someone swearing and banging the windscreen while driving through Pinner, it’s me, trying to re-attach the sat nav.
Also there’s all that wiping the windscreen so robbers can’t see from the mark that you have a decent piece of kit, possibly hidden in the car and break in on the off-chance that this is the day that you decided to leave it in there rather than add it to the other annoying stuff in your handbag (and risk certain death if conscientious Not So Alpha Husband ever finds out).
But I have a new toy that solves all my sat nav problems.
It is called a Nav Mat and it’s made by a company called Bracketron. Basically, it’s a grippy mat, for your sat nav, a bit like a heavy beanbag that sits solidly on your dashboard, almost moulding to it, and your sat nav nestles happily atop it. Most sat navs fit it, and you can also use it for your phone or MP3 player. There’s no mark left, and the police have even given it their stamp of approval.
Here is a pic of it:

It’s only £20 from Amazon or Lakeland and it has changed my life. In a really small but good way. Smiles all round.

Now, as regular readers will know, I am rather addicted to useful gadgety things that are properly helpful to family life.
There are two in particular that get my big love this week.
Firstly, the Ocado app I’ve just downloaded to my iPhone. It means you can do your whole weekly shop really easily and quickly, even when you are, say, stuck in a traffic jam or waiting for your daughters’ dance lessons to finish – which is exactly what I did today. Brilliant. They even offer you the option to change your normal irritatingly long password to a four-digit pin so you can sign in really easily. Thank you Mr Techy Ocado person for making me very happy today.
Also – and this isn’t exactly techy but it is marvellous – I want to thank everyone involved with making the Bunny Clock which must, surely, be every parents’ dream invention.
The idea is that you close the Bunny’s eyes at bedtime, then you set a time – 7am, say – when the eyes will open. If Bunny is asleep, the girls are not allowed to wake us up unless there’s an emergency, like the house is on fire, on pain of huge punishment. When the eyes open, they can come and wake us up. So even when your kids are too young to tell the time, they can use a clock. Genius.
In case you haven’t seen it before, here it is in action.

Anyone else got any favourite gadgets or gizmos?

I have had a very jolly morning today, talking to the ever-so-charming Aldo Zilli about extreme convenience foods for a Daily Mail feature I am writing.
Here he is, in case you don’t know who I mean…

The reason I was writing the article is that there was a story in the papers this week about eggs you can now buy that are pre-boiled and peeled. So Aldo tasted them and 11 other foods for me, for my piece and said what he thought.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for things that make life easier. I mean, I multi-task to such an extent that I can be on a work call and make dinner and put the washing (and, er, go to the loo) at the same time. But having someone boil your eggs for you? Weird. They are free range, and from the lovely Happy Egg Company, who are really great and look after their chickens nicely, but they also cost 89p for two – about twice the price of buying eggs and boiling them yourself. Plus when you open the pack the smell really hits you. Ugh.
But…maybe for a picnic or lunchbox they might be quite useful.
So, what do you think? Here is my first ever blog poll so you can tell me really easily, with a little clickette of your mouse. Happy voting!

I was invited by the lovely people at O2, who host this blog, to a special cinema screening of their new interactive 3D advert which is showing before some performances of Ice Age 3 – and asked Little Princess One to join me. She was beside herself with excitement and, for once, behaved impeccably, sitting nicely with her comic on the tube, eating loads of sushi at the ‘moving table restaurant’ and then skipping happily beside me through Leicester Square to the Vue Cinema.
There was a game beamed on to the lobby floor by O2 which was great fun – she had to jump on the asteroids (’Wow, this cinema is so cool to have game, Mummy’) and follow a moving space rocket, all very clever.
Here she is, playing it….

Then we went into the cinema armed with 3D glasses. Boy, they have come a long way since those paper ones with red and blue crinkly lenses. These were actually like proper sunglasses – look:

For the ad the audience had to steer a space ship on screen through an asteroid field by waving their arms around. Great fun and very smart – like a giant game of Wii. Then we watched the movie which is really fun – if hugely geologically inaccurate, which is slightly annoying. Still, I can recommend for anyone aged four and upwards.
On the way home I asked LP1 what her favourite part of the evening had been. ‘It has been my best night our ever,’ she yawned. ‘But the best bit was the advert. I loved it. I love O2.’
Oh dear, I fear I am turning her into a little advertising robot.

I’m feeling a bit more positive this week due to several lovely things happening. Firstly, we have ordered our puppy and are collecting him next Friday from his breeder in Cardiff. Be prepared for lots of photos.
Secondly, I have a great new techtoy. It’s called netvibes. Does everyone use it and am I the last person in the world to get into it? It is FANTASTIC! It means I can totally keep track of the RSS feeds from all my favourite blogs and add comments really easily, as well as see Twitter alerts, Facebook, organise loads of other websites etc that I like. Wow wow wow. If you haven’t used it, you must. It’s free, and you can find it at www.netvibes.com
Finally, and most cheering of all, the totally adorable anxiousmum gave me my first award this week! Here it is…

Now, being fairly new to this blogging lark, I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, so I Googled it, and although I am not sure where it originated, it turns out I am being praised for writing honest stuff about myself on my blog and now have two tasks. One is to list 10 honest things about myself and the next is to present the award to seven other bloggers.
So here goes with 10 honest things about me:

1. I am obsessed with baking and have been known to make muffins at 4am before going in to work on London Lite (the freebie newspaper, which I helped launch) with a tin of warm ones for the staff. My favourite so far are raspberry and white chocolate. (I’ll share the recipe with you some time.)
2. I once wet myself when I was concentrating really hard in a violin lesson at school, aged seven, and now am worried that if I concentrate too hard on anything, it will happen again. This was such an issue at university that before my finals I had to have ‘exam training’ to learn how to concentrate properly without fear.
3. I hate using the phone. I live in fear that I am going to phone, say, a cousin, who will respond to my greeting by saying ‘Anne who?’ This means I am really bad at calling people to congratulate them or thank them. I’d always rather write to them.
4. I love rubbish TV. America’s Next Top Model is the best, closely followed by Come Dine With Me.
5. I also love modern fiction. Good stuff – most definitely not rubbish. Preferably by women writers. Favourites include Scarlett Thomas and Sarah Waters. I never go on holiday without something written by Paulo Coelho.
6. When I am feeling low I eat pilchards on toast, read Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers books and suck my thumb.
7. I hate lateness. I try to arrive everywhere half an hour before the alloted time or I start to panic.
8. I use Mitchum deodorant. I don’t exactly have ‘problem perspiration’ but let’s just say I am really jealous of people who can wear silk blouses during a heat wave…
9. I have twin brothers who I love to bits – as well as their wives and kids – and get quite upset when they do stuff together without me.
10. My husband says my chicken soup is better than his mother’s.

Now here are seven other bloggers to whom I award the Honest Scrap Award:

1. Violet Posy
2. Perfectlyhappymum
3. Part Mummy Part Me
4. dulwichdivorcee
5. and1moremeans4
6. amodernmother
7. pottydiaries

Imagine my suprise this week when I drove into school for the first time in a while (I have been allowing the new au pair to get used to the school run while I try to do housework and writing work, worrying she is going to get lost/crash the car) only to find the hunky caretaker standing near the gate, seemingly looking for someone. As I approached in the car, he pointed and waved and patted his heart and looked sad.

‘Oh my goodness, he has missed me!’ I said to the Little Princesses, who ignored me and continued to sing along to High School Musical 3 (please, please Zac Efron, agree to making a HSM 4 so at least we can have something new to listen to in the car.)

Anyway, I parked up, checked my hair in the mirror, and then walked the LPs into the playground where the caretaker was waiting by the gate. ‘Hi,’ I said, in my most cheerful yet seductive voice. ‘Hi,’ he replied. ‘I can’t tell you how much I am missing your old au pair. She was so pretty with such a lovely smile, it made me happy to see her every day.’

At that moment, we were joined by one of the male teachers. ‘Are we talking about the tragedy of this school year?’ he asked. ‘How can you have let her go, she was gorgeous.’

‘Yes chaps, she was lovely,’ I told them, through gritted teeth, ‘and she was also 19, so way too young for you.’ And with as much dignity as I could muster, I stalked off.

Let’s just say my crush on the caretaker is well and truly ended.

And the week has only got worse. Poor darling LP1 has a vile tummy bug, Not So Alpha Male is in Sicily at a glamourous wedding while I stay at home with the kids, and despite dieting like mad all week, I went to be weighed to find I had, in fact, gained a pound.

Plus I am a bit cross with my formerly beloved iPhone.  I plugged it into my AppleMac to update it with all the new software so I can now text photos and so on, and for some reason it crashed and I lost all my music, apps and  – worst of all – contacts.

That’s the thing about technology. When it’s all going according to plan it is wonderful and makes life so much better. When it goes wrong, it’s a right pain in the backside.

Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood by the time I write my next post.