Family life – Page 4

The best thing about slides

The best thing about a slide isn't the approach... ...nor the anticipation... ...nor even the actual slide. It's the cuddles at the bottom! What's your child's favourite thing to do at the park? ...

Perseverance (or what hanging out the washing with my son has taught me)

I was hanging out the washing recently (yes, I lead an extremely glamorous life) and Mitchell was trying to help me (yes, I'm a super-fun mum who only gives the best playthings to her children).He had a pair of his tracksuit pants (yes, I'm a ...

Why questions revisited

I've written about toddler why questions before. But they deserve a rerun.Because that's what toddlers give them. Rerun after rerun after rerun...Pre-parenting, you look forward to the 'why' phase. Other parents obviously just don't get it. It's ...

Big little girl

I blinked. And I missed it.I looked at Ashleigh the other day, and realised it had happened.She's not a toddler anymore. No remaining trace of baby or infant.I blinked. And I missed it. The moment my girl grew up.She's a person. A little girl. A big ...

Tiredness vs exhaustion – it isn’t just me

One of my most popular posts last year was a recap of the ridiculous things that tiredness and exhaustion made me do during the early days of this second outing of child-rearing.Showering with my glasses on. Putting the kettle in the fridge ...

Kids be kids be who they are

Last year, I wrote about gender-specific toys.An incorrectly titled post, in hindsight. Really, it was about gender-targeted toys. Toys marketed along gender-specific lines, with girls expected to play with dolls, ponies, vacuum cleaners and all ...

Decisions

How many decisions do you think you make each day? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred?I have no idea how many decisions I make each day. Possibly less than when I was working full-time. Possibly more, but because they're seemingly smaller they don't ...

Feeling grateful

I'm having a rough week. A could-have-been-so-much-worse-but-still-very-scary moment with the kiddlywinks has left me physically, mentally and emotionally drained.I had grand plans for this, my final post of 2013. But.I bought a gratitude ...

My favourite memories of 2013 are…

Anything featuring this guy:Meeting him. Getting to know him. Watching him grow. Watching him learn. Thinking it would take a while to get used to having him in the family.Realising he was always meant to be in it.----Anything featuring ...

Top five ridiculous things people have said to me about my children

I generally like to keep things positive here at emhawkerblog. Tales of my children, the renovation, odes to chocolate, and the occasional song rewrite. But I'm running on empty at the moment. Short on sleep, short of temper, and short on tales of ...