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Get sun smart with Oh-Lief’s organic sunscreen {Win!}
Guys, we love Summer! We are water babies and would do anything to be in the pool for, like, the whole month of December. I’m hoping that this love of swimming and sun-soaked pool days will rub off on my kids. To kick start this communal – uh – love affair with Summer, I made sure to get my smallies some funky swimming gear and sun hats. I also knew that I had to stock up on sunscreen because sunburn is no joke. So I was quite keen to try out Oh-Lief’s new range of organic sunscreen. I mean, this local family business has been around for more than 9…
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A swallowed coin and a trip to the operating room
There are few things in life that challenge me the way that parenting does. I mean, if you think about it, you’re responsible for keeping a whole human being alive. Easier said than done, sometimes. Well, this is what I learnt on Friday night when I heard my 2 year old gagging. Now, disclaimer: Thanks for saying my family is beautiful but here’s the (hard, ugly) truth about having three kids under the age of five… you often have to put one kid’s needs on hold, while you’re seeing to the other one. I mean, it’s not exactly ideal. So when the baby made the biggest poo of his life…
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‘The Little Generosity Shop’ is trading in your toys for chocolates!
Your kid’s have way to many toys. There, I said it. Whaaaat, mine do too. In fact, if you consider the vast number of children, in underprivileged areas, who probably don’t even own a decent pair of shoes on most days, I would say that our kids have a lot more going for them than a banging toy box. The other day I made encouraged my kids to purge their toy box, in a bid to get them to, well, mainly have less crap in my house. But also, I want them to get into the habit of letting go of things that they don’t need, with the intention of…
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Telling our kids we are pregnant
When you have as many as we do, you kinda brace yourself when breaking pregnancy news to the kids. Telling our kids we are pregnant was a pretty big deal in our home. I mean, the older ones help out with the younger ones (thanks Kyle), so a new baby means more smallies to run after. It helps that Kyle is almost 18 and that Seth (who lives with his bio mom anyways) is 13. But you guys, Jo (2) and Kari (4) are a handful on their own. Kari thinks that Jo is a handful too (I know this because she says it). Jo… well, he’s just outchere being…
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Bath Time with Purity & Elizabeth Annes
We take bath time really seriously in our home. Okay, correction. I do. I take bath time seriously. Whaaat? It’s the only time I get to cuddle and love on my babies without them wanting to ditch me for their dad or play things. Part of our routine involves me telling them little stories, making up songs about the amount of fingers and toes they have and I obviously love that I get to rub them up with lotions and nice smelling potions, while they stare at me, enamored. Over the past week we tried out some of the cool products from Purity & Elizabeth Anne’s mild and gentle range.…
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Choosing the right school for your child and other parenting headaches
I grew up in (what our brown people lovingly refer to as) the hood, in Port Elizabeth. You know… the type of suburb where all the kids in the neighborhood would play with each other, in the street, literally, because we didn’t have big yards or grassy side walks. It was a time of unsolicited nicknames (because we all knew a “China” or “Blou” or “Koppe”) and anyone’s parent was allowed to give you a group spanking if you misbehaved. Back then, the unspoken rule was that when your time for schooling came, you would attend one of the public schools in the area. I mean, my parents probably knew…
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When is cow’s milk safe for my toddler?
My bully beef baby boy is growing so well, you guys! His budding personality and infectious giggles are the highlight of our day (Kari included!) and we love watching him grow into a real little boy. On his first birthday, I had begun to wean him off formula, introducing a growth milk slowly. My wallet enjoyed the relief! My Hubstopher appreciated the efficiency behind simply pouring, versus the mind-numbing time suck that comes preparing formula bottles in the middle of the night. And then, the unthinkable happened. It was 11pm, on a Sunday night, and we had run out of growth milk. I don’t know, somewhere along the line, my…
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Should we be raising more racially aware kids?
You may or may not be familiar with the story of a school in the North West, that left parents fuming after a picture circulated showing that the black learners were sitting separately from the white learners in the class. A mother of one of the black grade R learners, from Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke, reported a case of racism, after she had received a pic in the class’s Whatsapp group, showing the obvious separation between the black and white children. The teacher had explained to one of the black parents (upon drop off) that she was planning to rotate them during the course of the day, since they were still easing into…
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Moms, have you heard about the ‘Fiver Party’ trend?
What if I told you that “no gift parties” are the new in thing? Yes, I’m being serious. Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Hands up, if you’ve been to more kid’s parties in one year, than you’ve been to actual, grown up parties. In fact, taking your children to birthday parties is high up on the list of standard “things to do when you’re a parent”. But the thing is this, guys, it can get quite pricey if you’re attending copious amounts of birthday parties on the regular! Well, one genius mom came up with the “Fiver Party” concept and it’s now trending in America and Canada. A Fiver…
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Your children are watching you
Your children are watching you. Yes, that sounds like the synopsis of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Ooooooooh. Okay, my cryptic opening line may have you scratching your head and reaching for your phone to scroll through Instagram. Sorry, Candice. I was having a moment. But now that I’ve pulled myself towards myself, allow me to explain. The other night I realised that my kids were watching my behavior. In a nutshell: one of my kids let slip that they could see how annoyed I was “the other day”. I literally did a double take, because, dude, I wasn’t annoyed on that day. Maybe it’s just my face. Seriously. But it…
