I am no great cook but I am a great lover of food. My husband (Italian – need I say more?) is the chef in our family – he does most of the cooking and I do most of the eating (it’s fab!) and we both love teaching our daughters about food. How to cook it, consume it and just love it.

My two-and-a-half year old loves helping out in the kitchen. She is curious about cooking and loves hearing about all the different ingredients that we use. She can mix and stir, and soon she’ll be able to cut – yes, really!

Kiddie Food Kutter is a child friendly knife – sounds like an oxymoron but this little device is real. The KFK knife is designed for children 3 years and older, to cut food in safety.

It has no sharp edges, yet it will cut any food from a soft tomato through to a tough steak. And it can’t cut your child’s fingers!?

How?

The child friendly knife uses a sawing action rather than relying on sharp teeth or blades. It is constructed from tumbled stainless steel with a moulded plastic handle.

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Born To Be Yummy is a new brand offering a range of child-sized treats with low sugar content.

If we’re honest; baking doesn’t taste as delicious without sugar. I have been really strict with my two-and-a-half year old daughter and her sugar intake. She has had pretty much none but I am starting to ease up a little; by allowing her treats that aren’t overtly sugary.

So she is allowed to consume some of life’s little pleasures without garnering a taste for sickly sweet sugar (or that’s the idea at least) – which is why Born To be Yummy child-sized treats with low sugar content suits me well.

The Born To Be Yummy philosophy is to put in as little sugar as possible, and to add in lots of nutritious ingredients (like fresh carrots or pineapple) and absolutely nothing artificial.

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For those of you who are mad about reading… to your kiddies, The Book Club is a fab new kids books website that deserves a look.

The Book Club is a community-powered website for book lovers that allows users to discover new books, add them to a virtual bookshelf, connect with similar people and stay up to date with new releases and exclusives – for free.

I’m not sure about you; but the number of times I have discovered a book that I think would be awesome for my girls, and then forgotten the title, author – and pretty much that I had seen the book in the first place – are too many to count.

I imagine a virtual bookshelf might serve my memory in this regard.

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Should self-esteem lessons for children be introduced in schools? The government has to decide. A recent report published by the All Party Parliamentary Group following a three-month inquiry on body image has spurred the debate.

The inquiry revealed that more than half the public has a negative body image; cosmetic surgery rates have increased by nearly 20% and 1.6 million people in the UK have eating disorders.

It’s terrifying.

As mum of two girls, one of the biggest fears raising my daughters in today’s media-driven society is the effect it will have on my daughters’ self-esteem.

And I don’t blame the media; I feel it’s my responsibility as a parent to do the best I can to neutralise its potentially detrimental effect. It’s a task so enormous that it literally boggles my mind.

A little help would be much appreciated!

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Roald Dahl is a national treasure. The writer’s superb imagination lives on in his books, which continue to fascinate and entertain children and adults the world over.

I feel like I want to gush about the guy but I know that I don’t need to… we all know how awesome his literature is.

If you and your kiddies are Dahl fans (and I’m sure I am speaking to most of you) a fun afternoon out is The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. A great kids activity near London (just 20 miles northwest of London).

The museum boasts two interactive and fact-packed biographical galleries that tell the story of Roald Dahl’s life, looking at how his experiences shaped him as a writer.

Visitors (young and old) are encouraged to dress up, make up stories, words and poems or get arty in the Story Centre craft room.

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