The writing is on the wall

Or rather, it's on the kitchen table.

Sid didn't do it.


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Still looking for large families

Just to let you know that I'm still looking for large families who might be interested in a media opportunity.

If you are a family with eight or more children living in the UK and you would like to find out more please email me at family@largerfamilylife.com.

Tania


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Rowntree's Sharing Bags - Review

Those of you who have been reading for a while know of my love of all things naughty.  I'm not talking anything that isn't suitable for family reading, you understand.  

I admit that I sometimes might send the children into the garden and hide in the corner of the kitchen with the ice cream. 

Sometimes I'll have an extra home made brownie.  I admit that, too.

And when I last had an appointment to see the consultant at the hospital I stopped off at the shop on the way out and bought a bar of chocolate which I gobbled on the way home.  I admit that too.

So when a nice man offered to send me some Rowntree's Sharing Bags I thought "Yes please!" followed by a less enthusiastic, "I don't really have to share them, do I?".

It turned out I did.

Sharing these was ok. I liked the juicy jelliness.  The bag could be bigger.  Either Rowntree's could work on that or I could work on greed.  I'll leave it to Rowntree's. 

These were fun and lovely and I had great enjoyment trying to nibble apart the faces.  How old am I?  Yes, I know.  I ought to be ashamed.  Funny that I'm not, though.

The Very Berry Jellies were extremely more-ish.  I have to say right now how struck I was by the tastes of all the sweets, and with their vibrant colours.  I'm very impressed that none of the colours, flavours or preservatives are artificial at all.  Almost makes me feel like I haven't given up on healthy eating after all.

But my absolute favourites were the Sour Faces and it was not, as dh suggested, because we had something in common. 

I loved these so much! Really loved them!  I like to think it's because they contained 50% fruit juice (would it count as one of my five a day?) but I think it was down to the gurning faces Mike and I pulled as we ate our way through the bag.  The kids didn't get these.  They were mine, all mine!  (And Mike's). 

So in short I would say that Rowntree's have got the flavours, the colours and the features right.  The only thing they got wrong were the name of the bags.

They are definitely NOT for sharing.

Full disclosure: I received the sweets free of charge for the purpose of this review.


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Looking for large families please

I have been contacted by a television company producer who is on the look out for large families to speak with regarding them possibly participating in a new series.

If you have a family with eight or more children and live in the UK and would like more information please email me at family (at) largerfamilylife (dot) com.



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I couldn't believe it either!

Yesterday something happened which had never happened before.  At least not to my recollection.  And it was such a significant event that I'm sure I would have remembered it if it had happened before.  But when it happened I was speechless and didn't quite know how to react such was the novelty.

I have a teenage daughter called Stephanie.

She is intelligent, beautiful and hard-headedly stubborn.

A few days ago she was having a few problems and I gave her some unsolicited and most probably unwanted advice because as a mum that is what I do and makes up part of my job specification.

As a teenage daughter her role is to either:

a) get annoyed with me and ignore my advice because what do I know, after all?

or

b) pretend to listen just to appease me and then ignore it regardless because what do I know, after all?


Yesterday popped up her Facebook status claiming she'd taken some advice and... well that was enough for me to pick up my phone to text her.

(Yes, Facebooking... texting... it's the main way of parenting teens nowadays apparently).

"Whose advice did you take?  It's got to be a first for you!"

Steph's reply, "Aha yours :)  don't react..."

*Speechless*

And worthy of only one reaction:

Parents of stubborn teens will understand my need to save the date.  I may take it to Parliament and request that this day becomes an annual holiday.  I'm sure they'd agree.

27th July 2011.

I will never forget this day as long as I live.


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10 things nobody tells you about pregnancy - until now

1. Haemorrhoids are only funny when they’re affecting somebody else and not you. That hilarious joke you made about offering to knit someone a woolly hat for their piles is no longer humourous when they say it back to you.

2. Your house will look like a fully licensed pharmacy and by the end of your nine months you will be an expert on all medications including but not limited to iron, antacids, piles and if you’re really unlucky, thrush.

3. You’ll be amazed that your body can stretch so much despite thinking weeks ago that you were about to burst. Is there no end to your elasticity, you wonder.  Apparently not.

4. The floor gets further away the bigger you get. It is also at this stage that you will drop things more often. And making the sound “Aauurghah!” when you pick things up doesn’t actually help, although may be therapeutic to do.

5. The most high intensity workout you have ever managed to achieve is only possible when you are eight months pregnant and trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Surely the calorie burn from that alone should be enough to get rid of any excess pregnancy weight?

6. Once you have finally found a comfortable position to sleep in/exhausted yourself to the point of unconsciousness you will need to wake for the toilet. That is the law.

7. Pregnancy hormones are real. They are only a fake symptom when other women are pregnant. Military cutbacks can be solved by taking on an army of hormonal pregnant women. After all, who in the world would take them on? Have you seen us at our worst?

8. At least once during the end of your pregnancy you will wonder if your waters had broken or you had an accident. People will be excited if you trickle amniotic fluid. Not so much if it’s urine.

9. No other woman in the world knows how you feel and yes, you are the only women to have ever been pregnant. Who’s going to argue? (See #7 for case in point).

10. You will worry.

You will worry at every single stage of your pregnancy. You think you’ll be alright when you hit 12 weeks because chances of miscarriage fall significantly. Then you reach 12 weeks and start to worry because your midwife can’t find the heartbeat at 13 weeks. Once you’ve found the heartbeat you’ll worry that you haven’t yet felt movement. Once you’ve felt movement you’ll worry that your baby isn’t moving around enough. Then you’ll worry that your baby is moving too much which is an obvious sign to you that he’s in distress. You think you’ll relax when you reach 24 weeks because your baby will be viable. When you reach 24 weeks you pray you’ll make it to 28 weeks because your baby is still so not ready to be born. Then you worry about the labour. And you’ll worry about having everything ready. Trust me, you’re going to worry until you have that baby in your arms.

If you think that birth brings an end to the journey of the worry train that you’ve been on for the last nine months you’re wrong.

It’s going to continue.

No matter how old they get.

Forever.


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Interview link update

Just a quick post to let you know that BBC South East now has our interview online on their Facebook page.  Those of you not in the UK can also view it there but it's only going to be up for a short while.

Also, Ready for Ten has posted an interview with us that you can read too.



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Fantastic family fun

A while ago our family was invited to spend the day with the staff and animals at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent.  When the lovely Sam wrote to ask us if our large family of little monkeys would like to meet and feed their large family of little monkeys we jumped at it!  (Of course, she worded it far more politely, but I'm sure that's what she meant).

We spend the few days leading up to our visit hoping and praying for good weather. So far the week had been a wash-out.  As it turned out we were lucky and had the best day weather-wise that we'd had for a while.  You've got to love British Summertime, don't you?

The day started early as always but this time we had company in the form of Linda from BBC South East News who wanted to capture our special day for a slot on the day's local news.  She arrived at 6.30am in order to film us all having breakfast and getting ready for the day.  We also had a quick interview to give a glimpse into our large family life.  It was especially amusing to hear five year old Sid answer the question, "What is the best thing about being in a large family?" with the answer, "Food!".  Typical Sid!

You know you're getting old when TV camera crews start looking so young.

After being asked a thousand and seventy five times whether it was time to go yet by several different small people it was finally time to go and we set off on our journey.

Port Lympne is one of the two Aspinall Wild Animal Parks.  It is located in Lympne, near Hythe in Kent with its sister park, Howletts, situated three miles south of Canterbury, Kent in Bekesbourne.  

Howletts was the first of the two parks to be opened back in 1975 by John Aspinall.  His aim was to breed rare and endangered species of animals and to return them to the wild.  The Aspinall Foundation has actively led in wild animal conservation ever since and has managed several projects and programmes around the world. 

When we arrived at Port Lympne we met up with Sam and two interns, Amy and Trevor, at the Gatehouse.  They immediately made us feel welcome and at ease and we quickly realised that this was true of all the staff we met there.  After a quick interview with BBC Radio Kent we began our day.

The first stop was meeting the36  Guinea Baboons and the kids were thrilled to be able to help with feeding time.  Jamie, pictured below, is the keeper and definite expert on the baboons.  He answered all my questions patiently and knew everything he could possibly know about them.  One thing I noticed is that all the animals were so well looked after and cared for and Jamie was a great example of why. 

Sid and Harry helping with feeding time

Eddie tossing in a couple of handfuls of nuts to the impatient baboons.

 It reminded me of feeding time at home!

Daddy, Oliver and Joseph looked on.  

Can you see Linda from BBC South East in the background filming our day?

 By this point we were quite oblivious to her as we were so taken by the baboons!

After we fed the baboons our journey around Port Lympne continued.  We passed by each of the animals and as we walked around the beauty of the place was striking and the views all around were absolutely breathtaking.  What immediately grabbed me was how not only were the animals so well looked after but I repeatedly marvelled (like a broken record at times!) how clean everything was!  With over 600 acres this I imagined is no easy task to achieve but somehow they do and the result is impressive.

We continued to be accompanied throughout the day by Sam, Amy and Trevor. I think Paddy wanted to take Trevor home with him as a souvenir as he insisted on holding his hand to walk around the place.  Whoever thinks home-educated children can't socialise really can't have met any!  We were enjoying their company and our time there so much that I didn't think to take many pictures at all which is my only disappointment of the day and completely my own fault.  

As we walked around on our way to a break for lunch we stopped off to see the gorillas.  Oh, how we all loved them!

Between them, Port Lympne and Howletts house the largest collection of gorillas in human care which currently stands at 74.  As well as this they also work on projects with the governments of the Republic of Congo and neighbouring Gabon, aiming to halt the decline of the western lowland gorillas.  The Aspinall Foundation's conservation work doesn't stop there as they have several overseas wildlife conservation projects (*cough*, message to Aspinall's, if you need a blogger to cover any of these...!) as well as conservation work within the UK.

Watching the gorillas, I think the children thought they were watching a parallel universe behind the glass -except hairier. 

Eddie wondered why Oliver wasn't answering him. 

Until he realised it wasn't Oliver. 

Sid, Eddie and Paddy were behaving the same way only this morning.

Harry felt like he was looking in a mirror.

Oliver and Joseph were well occupied watching the antics of the baby gorillas. 

I think they'd have happily stayed there for hours!

Paddy realised what the twins' arrival would bring. 

And who doesn't love a new baby?!

Tired from the morning's excitement it was time to stop for lunch and a sit down.  I very much appreciated this!  I also very much appreciated the trip back to base on the minibus afterwards which saved us (or more to the point, me) from having to walk uphill.  I'm sure it wouldn't normally have been a problem for my usual athletic self (*ahem*) but when you're 24 weeks pregnant with twins it's not on my list of priority experiences!

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the park some more and took part in the Wild Animal Experience which much to the boys' enjoyment included a safari on one of these:

We were driven around the park with a stop halfway to have a quick play and stretch of the legs as well as a look around the souvenir shop.  You're in no hurry to continue the journey by boarding the same truck again and are free to stay at the stop for as long as you like, catching a later truck back.  We chose to re-board quickly as by now we were all beginning to flag and wind down a little. 

We finished up on the safari and then had another sit down accompanied by ice-cream which was the perfect end to a wonderfully perfect day.  

We were all tuckered out by the time we got home that evening.  There is plenty to do and one day isn't enough and much to my surprise as I'd imagined otherwise, the safari ride around the park is all included in the one day ticket price.  Not only that but if you visit once your ticket is actually valid for a whole year, so while they don't offer family ticket prices or discounts this works out at excellent value and is definitely something that we're going to be getting as soon as finances allow though I do also have to point out that the tickets aren't set at excruciatingly painful prices and absolutely worth every penny. You can find out more about the Port Lympne Passport here. 

I've gone on enough about how much I loved it but what did the children think?

Here are some quotes from the children:

Harry: "I thought it was really good. When we went on the truck there was a big board that had all the animals and we fed the monkeys and it wasn't good... it was GREAT!"

Caitin: "It was really fun. I liked seeing the monkeys and feeding them and I liked the lions as we first went in."

Sid: "I loved everything! Can we go back again? Can we go back today? What about tomorrow?"

Eddie: "I liked the truck and the lions and the gorillas and the monkeys.  I liked everything! It was great!"

Oliver: "Monkey! Ooh-ooh, ah-ah!"

Paddy: "I like all the animals!"

So to all the staff at Port Lympne, I'd like to say a big thank you and you couldn't have made it any more special or memorable for us.  We are thoroughly grateful for all you did and want to extend our particular thanks and appreciation to Sam, Amy and Trevor for putting up with us all!  We will definitely be back! 

(Sam? Amy? Trevor? Where did you all go?!)

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