'You've got your hands full'

Q&A with Littlemumpreneur.com: How I started a business

THE following is from Littlemumpreneur.com. I hope you may find it interesting. I meant to point people in Erica's direction a while back! Thanks Erica for the questions.

Q1. What is your business called and what does it do?

I’m the director of Passionate Media. This is an agency in Staffordshire, working on various types of editorial and social media projects and commissions for national and regional clients. We also train aspiring writers, journalists, non-profit organisations and companies in making the most of social media and/or journalism/commercial writing skills.

Healthy eating advice from Liz Hurley? No thanks

LIZ Hurley is a beautiful and successful actress-cum-model-cum-producer-cum-organic farmer. Her face adorns advertising hoardings, glossy magazine pages and carrier bags. I'm a fat mum of two who longs to be five stone lighter. My face adorns scary rollercoaster pictures.

But I won't be buying her "guilt free" bars thanks.

Here's why. Two years ago, I jotted down the following points after a life-changing appointment with the nutritionist Lyndel Costain.

How have you got on with SATs?

THIS week, my daughters, who are in Year six, took their SATs.

 

Despite all the discussion about how stressful a time this can be, I somehow thought my girls -- who are laid back, hardy little souls -- would sail through. I don't mean in terms of their academic ability (which I won't discuss thank you very much) but how tough they would find it to actually get on and do. I naively thought it would be a breeze.

 

Off they went to school on Monday, as relaxed as they could be, with my words to "just do your best, you know we love you," ringing in their ears. They had the best packed lunch ever and were mildly excited by the prospect of a free bacon sandwich on offer when they arrived.

 

Great British Days Out 2010 raising money and awareness for NACCPO

THIS post is from Have a Lovely Time.

IN the coming weeks, Have a Lovely Time will carry a number of reviews of places across Britain that welcome families. We've already lined up some great attractions to report back from, all over the country.

In some cases, complimentary tickets will have been provided by the attraction or destination reviewed. Bloggers reviewing these places are asked to donate a sum to children's cancer charity, NACCPO.

The treadmill and me: One step beyond...

I'M a bit scared of treadmills, you only have to watch the above video through to see why.

But here I go again. It’s treadmill time – 7am. It can seem far too much like hard work.

That’s just the bending over to put my towel down as this expensive piece of kit has nowhere to put it.

Write away: Advice from Keris Stainton, author of Della says: OMG!

KERIS Stainton is one of the sweetest people you could ever meet. Totally unassuming and modest, she is a fabulous writer and blogger and now, don't you know, author of Della Says: OMG!

Della’s over the moon when she kisses her long-standing crush at a party – but then she discovers her diary has disappeared... When scans of embarrassing pages are sent to her mobile and appear on Facebook, Della’s distraught – how can she enjoy her first proper romance when someone, somewhere, knows all her deepest, darkest secrets?

Here's an interview with Keris to mark publication of her first young adult novel, which I can't wait to read.

This interview will also be appearing at Judith's Room by the way.

Choose three words to describe yourself

Determined. Excitable. Short.

Are you a 'good enough' mum? Course you are!

CHANCES are if you've asked yourself that question, the answer's pretty likely to be yes. Don't you agree?

The above video was shot at our office by Mario from Someone Once Told Me and features the gorgeous Grace Marshall who runs a group in Stafford for mums who work for themselves, which my dear friend and colleague Carol has also been involved with.

I had reason to watch this video today and thought I'd include it here.

Hope you like it.

Media request: Do you have a lot of help from friends and family?

JOURNALIST Natasha Holt is researching the following piece for a women's weekly and would love to hear from you if you genuinely fit the bill:

We're running a piece called 'Team parent' which shows how these days many families rely on a number of people around them to help with childcare.

We need to find one woman who has a huge amount of help from grandparents, family and friends who all have a hand in bringing up her baby. We will interview all those involved and do a photoshoot with you all.

Please contact Natasha: natasha_holt[at]yahoo.co.uk if you reckon you could be the lady in question.

Twin Tuesday: Coping with tantrums

HOW do you cope with tantrums? It's a hard enough question when faced with the prospect of one bawling toddler, let alone two.

Lisa Burn recently wrote about tantrums on Sofeminine.co.uk and what a refreshing change it was to see the views of some twin mums included as a matter of course in a parenting article.

This comes hot on the heels of Joanne's fab advice on Parentdish.

She reports:

For Karen, splitting up her twins soon as a tantrum starts, helps diffuse the situation. ‘They certainly make each other worse if left together,’ she reveals. ‘We have to remain firm, give them time to calm down and then explain we will not have that behaviour in our home.'

Lisa also kindly included some input from me in the piece.

Here's what I had to say on the subject: