Our favourite post of the week is written by Kylie, author of Not Even A Bag Of Sugar.

Kylie, the mum of a gorgeous little boy who was born at 27 weeks, uses her blog to share experiences, not only of pre-eclampsia and premature babies, but of anything that inspires and touches her.

Read Kylie’s take on separation anxiety; something that affects both toddlers and mums.

Toddler Separation Anxiety

How the tables have turned. When Joseph was born, I felt acutely that he wasn’t with me. The first pangs of separation anxiety. I couldn’t bear the fact that my precious baby wasn’t with me. It was horrendous. Every time I left him my heart just pained, that he was laying there, all on his own, in his little plastic box. It has taken me a long time to get over those feelings of separation anxiety.

Joseph was a reasonably laid back baby, he would happily go to anyone (though only mama was allowed to give him bottles and food). I was taken by surprise when separation anxiety hit at around one year corrected, If I dared to go to the toilet at a friend’s house, Joseph would let fly, dragging himself to the bottom of the stairs screaming like a diva. At first his separation anxiety worried me. It was so out of character. Unfortunately, it was to get worse. On the odd occasion I had to leave him, as he got older, it got worse. Now his separation anxiety is still very acute.

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This week’s mummy blogger post of the week is written by Vickie, the author of Neverfoundtheplot.com.

Vickie is a mum of two boys, a child-minder and blogger in her passing moments. She is also a mum who says she lost the plot and is still looking for it. Can anyone help?

The holidays are over but a mum’s job of keeping her children occupied is never ever done. Read how Vickie survived this summer:

Survival

I am just about surviving the holidays. As a child-minder, on some days all you can do is survive.

I love my job but when you have seven children in your care, from the ages of 11 months up to 6 years old, it’s hard to entertain all.

I have been surviving by using my local council, seeing what they have on offer. This year we have sent days making crafts out of recyclable material, Bug Hunts, meeting rescue and force workers. We also spent a few afternoons having Party in Parks.

I arranged our own adventures; from Famous Five styled trips to deserted coves, sports days with local child-minders to treasure hunts and den-building in the woods.

There are also the days at home doing crafts, such as making masks to putting on a show.

I feel that planning is essential to survival; I also feel that the children have to be on board because if they are bored they are not having fun.

I have seven working days left of the summer holidays, and yes I have survived it and at times really loved it again. Just need to get a car back on the road, then we can have so much more fun and adventure.

This week’s Mummy Blogger Post of the week award goes to Muddling Along Mummy.

Our tenacious mummy blogger writes about a world inhabited by a husband, two children, a home, two chickens and a full time job – a world that often makes no sense and can only be negotiated with massive amount of juggling prowess.

Muddling Mummy shares her sadness over yet another miscarriage… and keeps it real! The millions of mums who have been through the same will identify and anyone who wants to have a child will empathise. Read on…

Feeling fed up, another month goes by

Feeling a bit down.  Actually make that a lot down.

Another month passes.

Another month and another time that I have managed to get pregnant but not stay pregnant.  Because obviously the important thing is to stay pregnant so you can actually BE pregnant.

The trouble with us both being so silly busy at work and everything else is that I chart so I at least have an idea when we should be making more of an effort.  And then the trouble is that having started a chart you carry on doing it and then you more or less know when you might just have managed to conceive.  And if you are really messing with your own mind you might take a teeny, tiny test despite the fact that experience says that testing before 6 weeks is a really bad idea.

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Meet Lauren, the author of our ‘Mummy Blogger Post of the Week.’

Lovely Lauren is a full time housewife and full time mum to Harry and Charles, and lives in Suffolk County. Whilst raising children and managing a home, Lauren manages to blog up a storm on her site Real Housewife of Suffolk County.

Read about Lauren’s car seat debacle; maybe you have some helpful hints for this poor stressed out mummy?

Car seat Commotion

The two boys already seem to have a lot in common in terms of looks, mannerisms etc. and also… their hatred for our car seat.  Except I’m not sure if it is just the particular car seat or just travelling in the car in general.

Every single journey out, whether it be a 5 minute trip to the supermarket, recycling centre or doctor’s surgery or a longer trip to my mother in laws or to local attractions normally involved us having to listen to Harry crying and crying. I hate it.

I hate not being able to help him understand and let him know that it’s ok and we haven’t abandoned him, we’re not ignoring him and that as soon as we reach our destination I’ll be able to cradle him and fix it for him.

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This week, our favourite mummy blogger post is by Jacq from Mymumdom.

Jacq is a mum of 4, kiwi in the uk, visiting vet, terrible cook,  reluctant cleaner, enthusiastic dog walker, willing taxi driver, resigned speech therapist, gardener, best mum in the world, skivvy, teacher, scapegoat, nurse, entertainer, worst mum in the world, judge and jury.

AND blogger. Read about some of the funny things our mummy blogger’s youngest son has to say:

Things My Son Says

DS has Verbal Dyspraxia, and his speech is very poor. So when he does say something new, it’s worth a blog post of its own.

He is 3.5 years now and it is becoming more and more obvious that he is different. We get a few odd looks when he is trying to tell me something with his uhs and oohs, but he hasn’t yet realised he is different. He’s very social and will happily go up to a strange child of the same age in the playground and say ‘ Ell-oh’. I’m not sure how long this will last;  I’m aware children with VD do become more withdrawn as they get older.

His peers at nursery do treat him differently. They are quite protective of him, and he has a little girlfriend who will speak for him given half a chance.  But he is certainly not excluded in any way because of his speech delay, there is always a crowd  of children calling his name and waiting for him when he arrives at nursery.

So what can he say? He can say simple words such as yes, no, mummy and daddy, up and off. He hasn’t yet mastered any of the sounds that use the back of the throat, such as the c in cat, g in goat and -ck in back. He’s reluctant to even try, so we are trying various tricks to try and get him to attempt the sounds.

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