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Mommy, what happened to your tummy?
“Ew mommy, what happened to your tummy?” my little girl asked me, while keeping me company in the bathroom. Apparently I need supervision while I shower. Mind you, I knew the day would come when my kids would start paying attention to body parts. I just didn’t expect that MY body would be the first point of interest. If I were to be sincerely honest – and I plan to be, because this blog is my therapy space – her question totally and completely devastated me. I mean, to say it nicely: it made me feel lekker junk. It made me feel junk because, I mean, who has lus to…
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Pregnant again?
Now, as you may know, I have a lot of children, and (like all other children) they are especially cute… so one could say that we’ve done a good job at creating kids. Right? Until I give off a whiff of my favorite scent – Eau De Pregnant – and people start losing their metaphorical ish. Because, apparently, I’m only allowed to be pregnant a certain amount of times AND within a certain period, or else I’m straight up being sloppy… and that’s not a good look. Well, that’s what I heard from all the ‘CEO of Ovaries‘ who cared to weigh in on the topic. So yes, I’ve been…
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Cooking with NESTLÉ for Healthier Kids
Can I let you in on a little secret? When it comes to the kitchen, I’m not exactly a cooking maven. In a nutshell, I have the culinary prowess of a french poodle. Ironically, I’ve noticed that my kids seemed to really enjoy spending time with me in the kitchen. They find the measuring and mixing particularly exciting and we usually end up sharing stories and silly moments while cooking up a storm. So I was particularly thrilled to receive a special drop from NESTLÉ, introducing us to the NESTLÉ for Healthier Kids initiative. This global campaign champions happy, nutritional moments of togetherness between parents and kids. I mean, our…
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When to talk to your child about career
I don’t know if you guys are aware, but your cute little poppets are going to morph into hairy, sweaty, opinionated teenagers eventually. And, besides for all the hair and body odour, the opinionated part will probably be the thing that irks you the most. For me and my hairy teen, the biggest debate has been around career. I mean, if the kid could make a living off of playing XBox games, he would gladly do so. But alas, this option (even though its a real career nogals) is not available to him right now. We’ve toyed around with a bunch of different career options and we honestly still have…
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4 Ways To “Slow Down” Our Happy Memories With Our Children
We’ve all had that feeling that childhood passes by too quickly. We parents wake up one day and our kids no longer want to play with us, and we feel like our recollection of this golden time of endearing neediness has slipped away. Well, what if there were a way to work against this feeling? To make the memory of our children’s childhood feel slower, broader, deeper, richer? A quick dip into the history of memory, of mnemonic techniques, can offer a guide as to how. 1. Keep Track of Firsts. The key to expanding the sense of richness and breadth of our interactions with our kids is by quantifying…
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Do you have a favorite child?
Okay, be honest (and you’re allowed to be… no judgies over here): do you have a favorite child? Don’t look at me like that, Susan. I’m not asking you to pick which one you’d save in a fire. (But okay, while we’re on it, which one? Kidding!) I know the immediate response to this question would be shock, horror, outrage, guilt. But having a favorite child is not as uncommon as you think. I mean, if you had to take a quick scroll through my Instagram feed you would see that I talk about some of my kids a heck of a lot more than I do the others. I’m…
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SnuggleRoo and the benefits of baby carrying {Giveaway!}
My baby doesn’t want to leave me alone. And I say this with all the love in my heart. The kid wants to be in my arms like, 24/7, you guys! It’s kinda draining. I’m not okay. I eventually realised that I needed help of a baby carrier to literally help lighten the load of carrying a 8kg baby in my arms the whole day. To be honest, the idea of wrapping or tying my newborn to my body didn’t exactly thrill me. I wasn’t 100% convinced that I could comfortably tie my giant child to my body, without, you know, breaking something or hurting my back. I also had…
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Combo-feeding helped me breastfeed longer
Few things in life are as deeply satisfying as seeing your baby’s content face after they’ve been fed and burped. I mean, that’s the ultimate goal, when they are that little… you know, to get them to a place of contentness (i.e. dry, fed and burped). We do this because, well, for starters it’s against the law to starve your child. But also, we do it because when your child is content and happy, you are at peace and can finally rest. And so when I started on my breastfeeding journey with my newest munchky, Asher, I knew that something was up when I wasn’t feel this peace and rest…
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The pros and cons of having a big family
I sometimes wonder if I give off a false sense of “okayness”. I mean, I’m not sure if I accurately portray the fact that it’s flippen challenging to parent many (many) kids while maintaining your sanity, career and marriage all at the same time. I’m sure that having a big family (AND a blended family, nogals) may appear to be very Kardashian-esque… you know, all quirks and light-hearted bickering while eating salad in the kitchen at midnight. But having a large-ish family is not all TV sitcom moments and learning life lessons the quirky way. So to prove a point (aka my kids are all napping and I have nothing to…
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Safe sleep for your baby
It’s 2am. I should be sleeping but I’m wide awake, my eyes fixed on my baby, who is sound asleep in his cot. I don’t want to a miss a thing! I mean, what if he stops breathing in the middle of the night?! What if the blanket isn’t as secure as I thought it was, and he ends up with a blankey over his face? What if he overheats? Is he warm enough? What if, what if, what if?! Yep – I’ve been that psycho mom probably all four times, with each of my kids. I would check on them literally every half hour, and (here’s the “psycho mom”…
