Ranty, Rant Rant.

I feel a rant coming on, it has been bubbling away all afternoon, just there festering like a little boil.  This rant is something that has for want of a better phrase "got right on my goat" for as long as I have been a mummy, for some reason today it just pushed me over the edge and the rant sprang forth.

Today I offered to have my friends baby for the afternoon, she is lovely, smurf loves her to pieces and as he was losing his daddy this afternoon (his best friend in the whole world!!!!!), I thought it would be good for him to see his baby friend to take his mind of it, also BFF has been feeling under the weather so thought she might appreciate the afternoon off.

So we pick baby friend up fix her baby carrier in the car, and head off for the airport, smurf chatting away to her, she babbling happily back, all goes well at the airport drop off , daddy gets away OK without to much fuss from smurf as he feels very important looking after baby friend.

On the way home I decide to brave the local Asda and pick up somethings for a cuppa with BFF and some other bits I needed, I mean how hard can it be, I'll park in a parent and child space, put them both in a trolley and off we will go.

And there is where the problem starts, with the coveted parent & child space, now I do not automatically expect to get a parent and child space, if other mums or dads with children were there before me..so be it, but what does totally P*** me off is the people that park there when they have no children with them, just because it is closer to the shop....It was pouring rain when we got there and I did manage to get a parent and child space, but as I sat in the car with the children waiting for the rain to abate a little, I watched no less than 3 other spaces fill up with people with no kids...I mean one of them was a bloody transit van!!!!!!!!!!!!

The spaces have a great big yellow picture of a parent and child in them, there are notices everywhere telling you they are for the use of parents with children ONLY!!!  Our local Asda even has notices and signs stating that you will be fined £60 if you park in it without children, does this make one blind bit of difference, does it heck as like.  

Now I hate conflict, but I wanted to go up and ask where the kids were...I didn't of course, but I really really wanted to....I think its only a matter of time.

Would love to know if anyone else has things like this that make them want to have a good rant, mine was that bad I had to buy chocolate cake, and its all the fault of those people parking in the wrong spaces.

Moving On Up!!

Friday was my smurfs last day at what we call Playschool,  he starts at school nursery on Wednesday.  I cant believe my smurf will be putting on a uniform and walking through the gates of the same school I went to over 30 years ago!!!   God that makes me feel so old.

It seems like only yesterday that he was born, all screwed up little face and waving arms and legs.

My precious boy, a child I never thought I would have and never realised how much I actually wanted until he was there squirming in my arms.

 

He was such a good baby, contented and peaceful, I could pass hours just looking at him. I wanted to hide us away and have him all to myself, selfish I know.

And I have watched him grow with wonder and awe, sometimes unable to believe that this little person is part off me, he is full of cheeky smiles and has an answer for everything...A true mischievous little boy, into everything and afraid of nothing. A child who can melt my heart with a smile and shatter it with word, then make it sing again in second with a little voice saying "mummy you are my best friend in the whole world"  of course this same phrase is used for daddy, granny, grandad and his teddy in carefully given out compliments.

I will watch him go into that school nursery with pride and a lump in my throat, cause as he told me this week when I had the never to call him baby, "I not a baby mummy...I Zak....", my baby is turning into such a proper big boy.

Its All About MEMEME!!!!!

I'm really quite excited, I have my first MeMeMe to complete, passed along courtesy of Sandycalico at Baby Baby it is the "Blame Tara MeMe".

So I shall try to follow the rules such as they are, which seem to consist of thanking the creator, who is Tara at Stickyfingers and I will also thank Sandy for passing it along to me!

Complete the MeMe, which I am just about to do.

And finally pass on to some more brilliant bloggers.

Right lets get to it!

1. Who is the hottest movie star?

Well now this is much more of a difficult question than it seems, you see I am very fickle, depends on the day of the week, which mood I am in ect.  I could spend all day just listing the stars I think are hot, but in the name of blogging and because he is Scottish, over 30 and totally divine I have decided to settle on .........

Gerard Butler (  if you have not heard of him watch "300" I promise its worth it!!!)

2. Apart from your house and car what is the most expensive thing you have ever bought?

This has really got me thinking and I really think it was a watch which I bought as a 30Th birthday present for my OH , it was very expensive, very indulgent and bought before we had children to think about, needless to say now days, any watch I buy comes from Argos and costs under £30, luckily the one I bought my OH seems to be standing the test of time!!!

3. What is your most treasured memory?

This was easy it is most definitely the second I held my son in my arms, corny I know but true.

4. What's the best gift you received as a child?

I don't really know about the best gift I received as a child but the one I remember more than any other is  "The Chronicles Of Narnia" all seven of these wonderful books were inside a little wooden wardrobe and it was a gift from my grandfather which also made it special, I loved these books and have read them many times and been transported into  a wonderful fantasy world.

5. What's the biggest mistake you have made? 

No one likes to admit to their mistakes, but oh well here goes, I think the biggest mistake I made was walking away from  a job I loved to go somewhere that was offering more money, I ended up miserable, but it did teach me that being happy is so much more important.

6. 4 Words to describe yourself?

Oh lets see...Loyal,caring, moody & helpful!!  The moody one was thrown in cause my hubby would say I am that!

7. What's the highlight or low light of 2008.

The highlight would defiantly be moving back to Scotland from the Midlands after a few years away from family and friends...I missed them.  And the low light would be that in order to do this it has meant my OH having to be away from home a lot,but we are dealing with that.

8. Favorite Film?

Hmmmm this thing is full of difficult questions, I m a real movie buff,I love movies, so to name only one film is very hard for me so I am going to just jump in with the first thing that comes into my head  "The Godfather".

9. Tell me one thing I don't know about you?

This one is easy since, being pretty new to this no one knows a lot about me, but the one thing I am going to tell you is that I am absolutely scared rigid, petrified of ......spiders!

10. If you were a comic book/strip character, who would you be?

Oh I would be Temperance Brennan from Kathy Reichs books..a forensic anthropologist...forensic science is my dream job.

Whoops I have come back to this question as someone pointed out I had answered it wrong...I chose a book character should have been "Comic Book"..so here goes lets try it again. 

 I would be "The Invisible Girl" from the Fantastic Four, cause I would love to see what people were doing when they thought no-one was there!!

That was really good fun and it got me thinking, now I get to pass it on to more blogs, this is probably the hardest part I think everyone I know already has it, so i am going to play it safe and go with the anyone who follows my blog go ahead and take this 'MeMe"

Review - Annabel Karmel - Complete Family Meal Planner

OK I was sent this lovely book to use and review courtesy of Sian at mummytips and the people at Ebury Publishing.

First impressions when I got the book out of the package, were that it was pretty substantial and had a lovely shiny wipe clean cover, always a bonus when kids want to help with the cooking.

First I just had a quick flick through and because we were both poorly the week the book arrived, decided to just make something that we already had ingredients for so it was the "Chicken Balls in Sweet and Sour Sauce"...I was a bit sceptical, my smurf is a terribly fussy eater,he wont eat lots of things, but hey I'll try anything once... the ingredients were straight forward, the instructions easy to follow and lo and behold in about 30 minutes we had a lovely meal ready, I rather gingerly put it on the table and to my huge surprise ...he scoffed everything that was on his plate.

Feeling inspired by this I have chosen a different recipe everyday and so far so good he has eaten at least some of everything we have tried. We have tried a variety of recipes, both sweet and savoury and some of the baking too.

I love the book, the recipes are easy to follow, there are no weird ingredients and nothing takes very long to put together, the other plus point for me is that they can be frozen, which is a great time saver and means when I am not home I know what daddy is feeding the smurf.

The other thing that makes me love this book is that we can all eat the meals and most of them are suitable for encouraging a bit of help from the children.

Having now had time to have a good old mooch through the book there are a few recipes that have made me  go..Hm mm not sure about that, but maybe that is more about my likes and dislikes and it would not stop me trying to get smurf to eat them.

Another of my favorite things with the Complete Family Meal Planner is just that it really is complete there are recipes from breakfast to dessert and also some lovely cakes and tasty treats, including the truly yummy "Glossy Dark & White Chocolate Brownies....not for kids but mummy loved them!!! You can see a picture above.

I love the advice and shopping lists at the front of the book and all the lovely quirky illustrations that appear thought the book as well as the photographs of some of the food, which really whets your appetite as you flick through.

All in all I would thoroughly recommend this book, its easy to use, gives some great inspiration to try new things and also adds a few new recipes that mums & dads can scoff to...defiantly worth having in your kitchen