by iamcrabstix | Mar 12, 2020 | general parenting
When you find yourself in the position of having a steadily growing family, you need to make sure that you are doing whatever you can to really look after them as well as possible and to make sure that you are going to make things easier for yourself as well. Ultimately, this is about attending to the needs of your growing family, and that’s something that you should be able to do no matter what as long as you know where to begin. In this article, we will take a look at some of the simple things that you will want to consider in order to ensure that you are truly attending to the needs of your growing family, and taking care of them in the best way you possibly can.

Food
One of the major costs and considerations here is always going to be food, and in a number of ways. Your children need to eat healthily if you want them to grow up strong and healthy, and you need to as well if you want to be able to deal with the whole situation as easy as possible and to keep stress at bay. So make sure that you are planning out your meals well and that they are as healthy as possible, and be sure to do your weekly grocery shop without family so you don’t fall prey to the easy choice of getting a takeaway (like the little fella above). If you can do that, you will be able to continue to feed your growing family easily and without trouble.

School
Their education is of course one of the most vital things too, and how you approach it says a lot about your style of parenting. A lot of people these days are increasingly trying their hand at homeschooling, which can prove to be a particularly good way of educating kids – but you need to consider whether you are really ready for that or whether you are better off just putting your kids in school. If you choose the school option, make sure that you have the means to get them there. That means having a reliable vehicle, with genuine Vauxhall parts & accessories, and having the time in your schedule to do the school run too.

Love
One thing that doesn’t diminish with the growth of a family is love, and you are going to find that this is one of the most joyous parts of the whole thing. But you might still need to think about it to some degree, as if you feel as if you are not going to be able to cope with a growing family then that can affect the amount of love that you express to your family every day. That is not something you want to happen, so it’s important that you keep your head on your shoulders and keep positive as you go along. That, above all, is going to make an enormous difference to how you attend to your growing family.
by iamcrabstix | Jan 8, 2020 | general parenting
It seems that fun just finds us during spring and summer, when the weather is oh so pleasant, and there are so many activities and events to enjoy. During the autumn and winter, however, things can be a little more complicated. Then, we’re mostly pushed indoors, and inspiration for having fun can be a little thin on the ground. But just because it’s more difficult to live life to the fullest during the colder months of the year, that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. Not at all, in fact! You will, however, need to make it happen. To help get you started, we’ve put together some useful tips that’ll put you on the right track. Incorporate the below into winter, and you might just find that it soon becomes your favourite season.
Movie Marathons
You could look at having to stay indoors as a negative thing, or you could see it as an opportunity to really make the most of all the comfort and entertainment that your home provides. What could be better, for example, than settling into a fun movie marathon with your loved ones? It’s easy to set up. Just make sure your living room is cosy, comfortable, and warm, and get the devices that’ll allow you to watch those classic family films. Add some popcorn and other snacks, and you’ll be ready to roll!

Outdoor Adventures
It’s true that the colder temperatures make it much more inviting to stay in the warm embrace of your home. However, it can also be fun to get all wrapped up, and go into the outdoors for a walk with the family. No matter where you’ll live, you’ll find that there is a beautiful space somewhere nearby that allows you to enjoy the great outdoors. Nature in winter is vastly underrated, in our opinion. You see a different side of life, and, since no-one else thinks to venture out, you’ll find that you have the space more or less all to yourself. When you’re finished, you’ll return home and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate. Perfect!
Baking Afternoons
One of the joys of winter is all the food that we get to eat. We do so under the pretence of keeping that internal engine chugging along and keeping us warm, but we can’t fool ourselves, those foods are also delicious. So it’s recommended that you invest in a quality winter cookbook, one with some delicious cookies and other baked goods recipes. Your child can be your assistant, so they’re included. During the process, your home will fill with those delicious scents, and you’ll get to enjoy all the fun of eating your creations once you’re finished, too.
Arts and Crafts
If the weather looks too miserable to venture outdoors, then why not look at getting an arts and crafts project underway, and see what you can create? You can create a lot with just a few staple supplies. Things like paper products, glitter, and glue dots can be used to create something that’ll have pride of place on your mantelpiece or fridge for many months to come. As well as simply being a fun way to pass a few hours indoors, arts and crafts are an excellent way to develop your child’s creative side, too.
Performance Time
If you want to get creative in a slightly grander way, then you could look at becoming your very own one-family talent production, and put on a show. It doesn’t really matter what type of show you put on, so long as it brings out your family’s inner theatrical side. You could hold a talent show, or hold a singing contest, or work together to develop a play. The good thing about this is that virtually every aspect is fun, from the idea development to finding costumes to rehearsing and then actually putting on the performance.
Friendly Competition
We’re all so used to diving into our phones, tablets and laptops whenever we’re bored that we often forget that people did, you know, used to have fun before the invention of the internet. If you’ve yet to partake in a mega family board game marathon, then winter will provide the perfect opportunity. Fill your home with those classic family board games, and when the weather becomes too severe to venture out, look at getting them out and sitting down for some friendly competition. It’s best to avoid the games that are most likely to cause an argument, though!
Take a Trip
Everyone thinks to take a trip overseas during the summer months, but this isn’t always the best option. After all, there’s so much fun to be had at home during the summer! So why not consider taking a family trip in winter? There are plenty of options available, more options than in summer, so you can find the perfect trip for you and your loved ones. You could head to the islands of southern Europe, and soak up the rays for a week. Or you could head to the snowy regions of northern Europe, and spend some time living a winter wonderland fantasy.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Life is oh so busy, and it’s only when we stop to reflect that we realise just how far we’ve come in life. It’s entirely possible that your children have little to no understanding about what your life was like before they were born. But you know that you were living a different life in those days. So why not use the cold weather as an excuse to show them your history? Bust out the old photo albums, and take a little trip down memory lane.
Art galleries and museums
Finally, why not take a trip to a local cultural site? There’ll be plenty to explore near to your home. When it’s cold and rainy, there are few places more enjoyable than a kid-friendly museum, art gallery, or other cultural attractions. It’ll be fun, but they’ll also be learning at the same time, too — it’s the perfect crime.
by iamcrabstix | Dec 31, 2019 | general parenting
2019 has been a very up and down year for me. It has been the best of times, it has been the worst of times and is definitely ending better than it started.
I’ve been crippled with anxiety, worried sick about going back to work, worried about my little boy and his development, had a cancerous mole removed, worried about my partners job, struggling with sleep deprivation and just in a constant battle with my own mind (thanks to everything on that list, thyroid issues and general overwhelm of having two kids under the age of four).
I’ve learned a lot about myself and about the impact that the feeling of personal responsibility for everything can have. Whether it be work-related, miscarriage related or anything else life related, blame and shame is soul-destroying. I feel that this year, I have made progress in regards to these feelings and stopped ruminating on them, which is a big thing. How I would have defined myself last year has changed and I’m actually happier for it, which I would have never expected.
I move into 2020 in a good place and where I am still looking for the constant physical danger in every situation with the kids (especially the little one), I’m now not crucifying myself worrying about things like us losing our jobs, for which I have no control over. What will be, will be, whether I think about it between the hours of 1-4am or not.
I still have to overcome a few things, which I would usually avoid, like meetings which I know will cause me to take things as personal criticism, events to manage where I have to delegate to people and hope they do as they should and my little boy still needs help with his speech and speech therapy are being quite useless, so I’m going to have to bash a few heads together. I’d usually fall apart, but I’m learning to lean on others and talk!
Here are some things that 2019 taught me:
- Truths are the stories we tell ourselves. Truth is different for different people.
- People may make you think that they are doing things better than you did them, but those things simply weren’t important to them before. See point 1.
- Most mothers that I have spoken to that suffer from anxiety seem to struggle with intolerance of uncertainty.
- Sticking to your values is very important.
- No two children are the same.
- Assumptions are bad.
- Potty training should be acceptable to add to skills on a CV as you’re an absolute pro if you do it without any help.
Here are some things that 2019 taught my twitter pals:
- Jon Shed was right to quit his job.
- Lisa found that she has no self-confidence and she needs to work on herself first before others (I’m gonna help her all I can).
- Sarah found that it’s okay to be on your own. She’s spent so long clinging to someone or something, she’s started to really enjoy her own company.
- Ms. Sentiment Shed is ending 2019 with an “I’ve got this attitude”.
- AR found that getting half-cut on gin and then pushing the ‘fuck it’ button one night by booking a trip to Disney World when drunk was actually not the worst idea in the world after all. Be more impulsive and stop holding myself back so much!.
- Jupiter was taught to always keep fighting for what is right, even if it’s hard and you feel like it’s going nowhere. Keep fighting and eventually, you’ll get somewhere.
It’s been a crazy year to live in the UK, but my echo chamber shows that it has given us time to reflect and move forward knowing who we are and what we want a little better.
Happy New Year!
by iamcrabstix | Sep 20, 2019 | general parenting
I wasn’t planning on sending my first to a nursery, but a fantastic one opened up close to where we live and I was sure it was going to have a waiting list when people found out about it. It was everything his Dad and I wanted for him; to enjoy being a child, to be outside and to have play at the heart of everything… so we put him for 15 hours per week, just before his second birthday. We did this to be sure that he’d get a place in the year he turned three and to also give him a little bit of routine for when his brother joined us last September. It didn’t quite work out as smoothly as I would have liked, but I have never regretted my decision to put my child in a nursery before the age of three, even though we didn’t need any help with childcare.

The staff have been so fantastic with him. We’ve noticed a lot of things that R needs help with, as he develops, such as his speech, confidence, attention span and all of the other brilliant things he’s given me to worry about on his three years on this earth. He has a long way to go, but he’s already come so far and a lot of that credit has to go to his key worker. I’ve never had a child before, she’s been my go-to person for questions and advice. Another member of staff, who is also a mum, has said things to me at pick up time that I really needed to hear. They weren’t prompted but telling me that he’d starting forming friendships, taking pictures of this and putting it on his tapestry account was just what I needed to hear when I’d been losing sleep about him always playing at the side of the other kids and not with them. Staff have become part of the village that I need to raise this little character. He’s started to be invited to children’s birthday parties and little things like that have given him confidence boosts where it is noticeable in his speech.

R was the first child in our family to go to nursery school before hours were available at the age of three. E will go at an even younger age than R did and although we are in a luxury position where we always have a grandparent available to look after them, I feel nursery gives them so much we simply cannot:
It helps prepare them for school
I had no idea that nursery works under the EYFS curriculum. You are able to look at the age in which your child is working in a range of areas, which will be assessed at school. As R is a summer baby, this is particularly important to us as some of the children at school are up to nine months older than him, which is a lot when they are so young.
It helps them socially
Making friends and having the ability to learn through peers has become our biggest driver for both children going to nursery. We don’t have any close friends that have children the same age as R, therefore our ability to offer him social experiences with people his own age are few and far between and this isn’t good for him. He has strong relationships with his cousins, but three of them are older and one of them is two years younger, so nursery has been crucial for this aspect of his development. It has been an area in which he has needed extra support in too as because his speech is a little later than some of the other children, this has affected his confidence and the ability to be able to form friendships.
Helps develop life skills
I’m just mum. R, until very recently, has operated an own agenda style of communication with me, I’ve been there to get him things and to provide his basic needs. There would be a mighty rage if I would try and teach him anything (I’m putting this down to his younger brother being born). He wouldn’t engage in anything such as reading (that’s for daddy), baking (grandma) and playing in the garden (everyone else). So nursery has been crucial support in helping him develop skills such as serving himself at mealtimes, using cutlery and drinking from a cup, again down to his communication styles. As his confidence has grown we’ve moved onto having a social communication style and now I’m allowed to roll down hills, play shops, sit and do phonic cards, jigsaws, role play with his house and animals. It was great to have nursery supporting that side of his development until he felt that we were all able to move between roles.
So when my baby starts nursery in January, at aged one year and three months, I won’t feel bad because I am doing it for all of the right reasons, for him and his development.

by iamcrabstix | Aug 19, 2019 | general parenting
When looking into childcare options for RLT, I noticed that childcare vouchers were soon to be unavailable to new applicants (October 2018). As I was already pregnant with our second child, I decided to head straight to opening a tax-free childcare account, so that I would only have to manage my childcare payments in one place further down the line.
What is tax-free childcare?
Tax free childcare is a system available in the UK where the government will give you £2 for every £8 you spend on childcare via a tax-free childcare account if you are earning (typically this is looking ahead to the next three months and you’d expect to earn at least £1,707.68 – the National Living Wage for people over 25, to qualify).
As my partner and I both work full-time, but we earn under £100,000 each, we qualify for this.
This is how I have found using the tax free childcare account system:
Simple to set up
The process was all completely online and I managed to do it in less than the twenty minutes specified, I just needed a few simple details about my national insurance number, employer and likewise for my partner.
You can only have one account for your child
If more than one person pays for childcare, you would need to use the one account, which only one parent can apply for. There is a sort code and account number you can provide for other people to add money to the account, there is also the option to make a card payment when you log in.
Logging in can be a bit of a pain
Every time I log into the government portal, it sends me a text message and I can’t proceed any further until I add in the code, it says that this code is valid for 7 days, but every time I log in, I get another code. It sometimes provides an error message too when I sign in, the government portals can definitely be more user-friendly, but they’re secure and during office hours they’re very good at responding to issues on twitter.
It takes a few days for the money to hit the account of your childcare provider
I have been able to automate my payments, so I have a standing order that leaves my bank account, hits my tax-free childcare account, gets topped up and then goes back out to my childcare provider (who has to be set up to take tax-free childcare, our nursery found the process of getting set up difficult and slow because they weren’t sent letters with codes on that were promised, this lost me around £180 in top-ups!). The process of my standing order hitting my tax-free childcare account tends to take 48 hours, it is topped up automatically and tends to take about four working days to get to our nursery when my balance is showing that the payment has been made. So please make your payments in advance of your nursery invoice due dates to be sure.
You will have to reconfirm your financial situation every three months
You will be prompted to log in and confirm your financial situation to ensure that you are still entitled to tax-free childcare. If you fail to reconfirm your entitlement will be stopped.
You can still benefit from tax-free childcare when you are on maternity leave
This was a big welcome surprise in our house! When you are reconfirming your eligibility it asks if you are earning a minimum amount per week. If like me, you’re on 12 months maternity leave and you don’t earn anything between months 9 and 12, you may think that you will not be eligible, but you are! As long as you’re on maternity leave you will get tax-free childcare (but not for the child you are on maternity leave for, which makes sense, really!)
If you have a tax-free childcare account they will automatically contact you when you are entitled to 30 hours free childcare
When I reconfirmed my situation for the last time before my child turned three years old, I had a message which advised me of his code for 30 hours free childcare and when we would be eligible to use it. I found it to be so easy and much more straightforward than I anticipated.
You can still use tax-free childcare even when using 30 hours free
If your childcare hours exceed 30 hours, you are still able to use your tax-free childcare account and top-up as required.
How much you can top-up by is capped
You can get up to £500 every 3 months (£2,000 a year) for each child. If your childcare bill is heavier in some months more than others, for instance, if your child is term-time only. You may want to be mindful of using your top-up allowance each month so that you don’t exceed the limits in some months and not use them at all in others.
by iamcrabstix | Jun 27, 2019 | general parenting, rlt
It’s been a rollercoaster of a year.

I think two is difficult at the best of times, but when 99% of people don’t understand you, you shout a little bit louder and have fits of rage that a bouncer on steroids would be proud of.

Throw into the mix a little brother, hearing problems, speech and language assessments, two parents completely distracted by work pressures and one of them that is so completely soft as 💩 that she fails to implement any boundaries, the early part of two sucked.
You have really struggled with your emotions this year, you have been very frustrated and angry. You have directed most of that at mummy, but that’s because you know she’s always there, even if it is with your brother. Thankfully, you have never been anything other than kind and caring to your brother. Although, I blame someone letting you watch Boss Baby just before his arrival for alot of the issues with your emotion! Why doesn’t he have a suit and why can’t he talk?

It took you about six months to acknowledge him, because he didn’t really do anything before that. But as soon as he sat up and thought you were funny, you have been the most helpful and caring big brother. You always tell me when he’s crying and you always try to comfort him with a hug, even if it does end up being an unintentional headbutt. He loves you so very much and always tries to get your attention and instigates it with a Peter Griffin type laugh. There is a definite pecking order and you love to tell him to stop touching the TV and to wash his hair (even if you don’t follow your own advice, you sprayed our nice 50 inch TV with a water bottle, rendering it useless and you always refuse to have your hair washed).

You still refuse to sleep all night in your own bed, even though Dada’s snoring wakes you up and you don’t get a good night’s sleep. One day you will stay in bed, so we don’t try to force you, if you need to know you’re not on your own in the middle of the dark night, that’s ok with us.

You’d like to be obsessed with technology, but we have to be very strict with you on what you can and can’t have. Your brother bought you a tablet, when he was born, but unfortunately your brother didn’t realise that you’d find an alternative app to use YouTube, so you only had it a few weeks. Your attention span could be a hindrance to your communication, so you’re only allowed such things to watch movies when we are in the car, which we did when we went to Bluestone and also to Center Parcs.

You really enjoyed swimming at both of these places, so we really need to do more of that now you’re three.

Getting you to talk more has been a big part of leading up to three. You don’t tell us when you’re hungry or thirsty and we have been told to stop anticipating your needs so much to try and get you to speak. This has been hard on us all as you do very well on a morning asking for cornflakes and juice, but you forget to do it for the rest of the day and then you get very upset. We have been using pictures to try and help, you know all of the names for the food and the drinks, but we are still working on hungry and thirsty. Unless it is for ice cream, then you know you always want an ice cream, so we know you can do it.

Singing has been a massive part of your year and it’s been lovely to see your confidence grow through singing. It’s taken you a very long time to dance in front of other people, but sometimes we know you’re dancing in the living room and we can see you from the kitchen. You’ve never liked nursery rhymes and do love guitars. You were so obsessed by George Ezra by the time your brother was born that we couldn’t resist giving him the middle name Ezra to always remember that time. Shotgun was definitely the first thing we ever heard you singing very clear, at a time when we were so very worried that you were unable to speak.
As time has gone on you listen less to George Ezra and extended your repertoire to electronic dance music at one point. Thankfully we’ve been able to reign the raving back a bit, thanks to the film, Sing, you now like Panic at the Disco and a bit of Stevie Wonder. Your biggest obsession currently is Sam Fender and you’re getting in to Justin Bieber, albeit when he teams up with Diplo, which I can take absolutely no blame for, honest.

We love you to death little man, you’ve now been discharged from audiology, because they think you have glue ear and nothing more serious. Where this is good news, this means we need to find a way to get you talking. Nursery have been a great help, although you’ve only recently stopped crying when I leave you there, you always come out ten feet tall as you’ve had a lovely time. You’ve been going to Hartbeeps for six months now, which I’ve seen you start to enjoy more than anything else in the world. It took along time to get you to take part, but your confidence is growing because of it and your imagination is starting to show through.

You would definitely benefit from having some friends now, so we will increase your nursery time from September so you get to see the boys and girls for as long as they get to see each other. It’s been a hard year, little man, but you’ve come so far, I promise I will do all that I can to make three better than two for you.
