Jan 31, 2011
Product Review: Usborne First Words chunky flashcards
Our local Wise Owl book shop stocks a great selection of early learning products. Recently we picked up a set of Usborne Look and Say flashcards. These “first words” flashcards are printed on chunky card, ideal for using with a toddler. I know there’s a whole trend towards teaching your baby to read – but that wasn’t our...
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Find the sheep!
Jan 30, 2011
All fall down!
Our Internet connection has been down for most of the day, and only seems to be staying up for a half hour or so at a time. So I’m postponing my planned post (a photographic walkthrough of how to make my favourite Banana Bread recipe – yummy!) until it’s a bit more reliable. Instead I thought I’d keep this short and sweet and just share with you a little vignette from our day.... read more
Jan 29, 2011
Baby Piano is one of Little Man’s favourite apps. We have the full HD version on the iPad, and the free light version on the iPhone. This app is developed by Baby Cortex, a development team from Dream Cortex. They make a great range of fun, learning games for the iPhone and iPad. Their apps always feature high quality, cute, colourful graphics and smooth interactions that have clearly been designed...
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App review: Baby Piano
Jan 28, 2011
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know by now that I am obsessed with sleep and the lack thereof these days. The other day on the radio, I heard a sleep expert warn people that you can never underestimate the importance of sleep. I felt like screaming at him “I know!!!”
So tonight dear reader, since Little Man is asleep and seems quite settled (whereas last night...
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Never underestimate the importance of sleep
Jan 27, 2011
Oh the excitement! I got an email this evening saying that the 2011 tour dates for In the Night Garden Live have been announced! Check out http://www.nightgardenlive.com/ for details. I first saw footage of In the Night Garden Live on YouTube last month, and since then I’ve been totally taken with the idea of bringing Little Man to see it.
Unfortunately there are no Irish dates, but the show is...
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In the Night Garden Live!
Jan 26, 2011
There was a pretty hateful article in the Herald on Jan 26 2011, from a chicklit author called Marisa Mackle, all about how she “hates, I mean really hates” breastfeeding in public.
I was in the middle of researching Marisa and her article so that I could blog about breastfeeding attitudes in the media, when I came across this post on another blog, which I think sums up my opinion on...
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Marisa Mackle: Anti-breastfeeding and birth stories!
Jan 25, 2011
If you’ve read my birth story, you’ll know what a huge fan I am of Gentlebirth. This is the self-hypnosis for childbirth programme that I used when I was having Little Man. Charlie and I completed a weekend course when I was about 20 weeks pregnant. Over the course of the weekend, we learned about the relationship between fear and pain in childbirth. We learned to question the portrayals of...
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There is a better way to give birth!
Jan 24, 2011
I’m a big believer in unstructured play for children. I love to let Little Man explore and pick something he wants to play with. I think he learns a lot this way – not just what’s fun and what isn’t, but it encourages him to figure out how things work for himself.
I also like to include some structured play in Little Man’s day. Generally I’m pretty good at thinking up...
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What shall we do next?
Jan 23, 2011
Little Man was about four months old when I signed us up for our first Water Babies classes. These classes claim to “teach your baby to swim”. They’re pretty expensive, but they’re fantastic for building confidence in the water – for the parent and the baby!
We completed two ten week courses of Water Babies. I found the first course much better. This was purely down to Little...
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My little Water Baby!
Jan 22, 2011
In those first few days in the hospital after Little Man was born, the nurses insisted that I track when Little Man fed and whether his nappies were wet or dirty. At first I used plain old pen and paper to track everything, but I found it awkward and I was guessing feed times and durations.
So when I got home, I started looking for a better way to track all of this information, and of course I...
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Baby Brain – there’s an app for that!
Jan 21, 2011
In Part 5 of my breastfeeding story, I finished by writing about the weekend I introduced a bottle of formula for one of Little Man’s feeds. This was a really low point for me. I felt I was letting him down by feeding him formula when he should be getting breastmilk. But I was so worn out by the whole experience, I felt I had no choice.
It took me by surprise how much extra energy I had just by...
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My breastfeeding story Part 6: The turning point
Jan 20, 2011
I love presents. So I was delighted when the postman arrived yesterday. Ok, so stuff that you order online doesn’t technically count as presents – but because it takes a few days or even weeks for the packages to arrive, I’ve usually forgotten all about them by the time they get here, so there’s always that moment of excitement as I wonder “Oooh – what’s...
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Little shoes for little feet
Jan 19, 2011
After seemingly endless months, Little Man finally started going down to sleep at a reasonable hour each evening, and Charlie and I found ourselves strangely at a loss each evening. Before we had Little Man, we passed most evenings eating out, or going to the cinema, or shopping in town, or going for drinks. But with Little Man at home, none of these activities is really an option anymore, unless we get a...
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Two can play at that game!
Jan 18, 2011
A couple of days ago, I posted about Little Man’s separation anxiety as a result of the “kitchen door incident”. My Internet search for a quick fix suggested lovebombing Little Man to help him over his anxiety. As it turns out, that’s just a fancy way of saying “spoil him for a day”.
So for 24 hours, we reassured him, and paid him extra attention. And boy has it paid...
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Loving the lovebomb!
Jan 17, 2011
Before Christmas, I started writing my breastfeeding story, beginning with my experiences in the first hour of Little Man’s life, and most recently with my story about the local breastfeeding support group.
I’ve been putting off writing the next part of the story because it deals with a very difficult time, and I’m finding it hard to write about. This is partly because it’s...
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My breastfeeding story Part 5: The low points
Jan 16, 2011
You may have read my story earlier this week about how Little Man managed to lock me in the kitchen, and Charlie had to break down a door to get to him. For almost twenty minutes, Little Man was aware that I couldn’t get to him.
Well afterwards I thought he was fine. I thought it was just me who was traumatised by the whole thing. But as the week as gone on, I’ve realised that’s not...
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Don’t leave me Mama!
Jan 15, 2011
For his first birthday, Little Man’s Nana bought him a Fisher Price Stride-to-Ride Dino.
At first, I wasn’t impressed by it because putting it together involved lots of screws, and just seemed a bit fiddly to me. But as soon as it was together, it became very steady, and I had no worries about Little Man being able to break it apart.
At the time, Little Man still couldn’t walk...
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Fisher Price Stride ‘n’ Ride Dino
Jan 14, 2011
I don’t let Little Man watch tv, so up to now, when other parents talk about Peppa Pig and Barney and whatever other kiddies programmes their little ones are watching, the conversation has gone over my head.
Sometime during the year, my wonderful sister-in-law, who has two little girls of her own and is much more clued in to these things than me, gave Little Man a present of an In The Night Garden...
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Journey into The Night Garden
Jan 13, 2011
Earlier this week, I received a lovely message from Sara B, a friend of mine from the local booby group. She read my birth story, and wanted to share her own with me. She has very kindly allowed me to publish her message here to share with all of you. Thanks for sharing your inspiring experience with us Sara!
Hi Lisa,
What a lovely story! And you were very well prepared it seems – I wish I had heard of...
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Giving birth is not scary!
Jan 12, 2011
There’s nothing Little Man likes better than to copy his Daddy. So of course, he took the opportunity to sneak into Daddy’s chair and do some work on the computer when he could!
Working is hard though, so afterwards, he had to take a little rest!
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Look Daddy – I can work too!
Jan 11, 2011
Tonight I created a Facebook page for Mama.ie. Some of my friends were asking my how they could follow my blog posts if they didn’t use Twitter or RSS readers, so a Facebook page seemed the next obvious choice. You can check it out here. Or simply click on the Facebook connect icon on the homepage of Mama.ie to browse to the page and of course don’t forget to Like it!
If you are on Twitter,...
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Mama.ie is now on Facebook!
Jan 10, 2011
Today I learned that Little Man can now turn a key in a lock. Unfortunately, he was on one side of the door and I was on the other when I learned this. And it was completely and utterly my fault.
I needed to check the casserole in the oven in the kitchen. First, I tried putting Little Man in his high chair while I checked it – but he was having none of it. He squealed and squirmed, and wriggled and...
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Toddler 1, Mammy Nil
Jan 9, 2011
If you’ve been visiting Mama.ie over the weekend, you may have noticed some changes in progress.
Much as I loved my original theme for the site, it was just proving too problematic. Pages were taking too long to load, and I just don’t have the patience to wait for them – so why should I expect you to wait! So it’s out with the old…
And in with the new!
Now I know...
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A work in progress
Jan 7, 2011
Little Man’s favourite app this week is called High Five!! This simple little app displays an animated hand on the screen. When you high five the hand, a voice says “High Five!” and some stars explode. Little Man just loves it!
You can also choose to “Fist Bump” or give a “Pat on the back” – but without a doubt, giving a “High Five” is Little...
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App review: High Five!!
Jan 6, 2011
Like thousands of other parents, the idea of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism scares the crap out of us, and has made us wary about giving Little Man the vaccine. Charlie and I discussed it at length, researched what we could, and decided in the end that the risk of Little Man contracting measles or mumps was greater than any possible risk of autism. As it turns out, since Little Man turned 1, he...
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MMR and autism link was financially motivated
