Cambridge Mummy on…. excuses…

The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. ~ Sonya Friedman

I’m busy with work, so I don’t have time to do more in the house.
I’m busy with work and have a cold, so it’s ok for me to eat a whole tub of ice cream.
I’m busy with work and therefore don’t have enough time in the day to be able to do some exercise.
I’m busy with work and therefore am making excuses for not making the most of my life.

Yes, work is busy. And that’s great. I’m loving it all. But I need to find a bit of time for me. So despite having been up since 6am, having had nocturnal visits from our children and having a cold, I’m going to do my first ever go at Shredding. I’ll let you know how I do :)

Oh, hang on, littlest little person has decided I’m not allowed off the sofa and must stay here with him. Now what do I do?

Cambridge Mummy on… what happened to Simple Saturday?

What happened to it? Where did it go? I don’t know, but it’s a Sunday. W and I are on the sofa. And life is good. Apart from the fact that he’s done a wee on the sofa and my foot, for No Good Reason.

Anyway, it’s been another week of life throwing us curve balls. I’ve chosen to look at them as opportunities to work what is important to me and my family – my husband and our boys. We’re always so busy running around from birthday party, to meet up, to finding a pair of shoes in the right size for someone, that it’s easy to forget why I got married and then, had children in the first place. The simple truth of it was that I met someone so great that I decided I couldn’t take those life challenges on without him – marriage, motherhood and all that stuff. But how difficult is it to remember that when you’re trying to shuttle everyone to parties, play dates and ?? (something else with a p should be in here for alliteration purposes…)

I don’t think there’s a point to this blog post. And I’m ok with that. So sorry if it’s boring you. It’s just that sometimes life gives us opportunities to re assess what our morals are, what’s an acceptable behaviour and what’s not, how far we are prepared to go because we love someone and to work out when “enough is enough” – for everyone. The older I get the more I realise how un perfect I, my family and life is. And that’s ok in my book x

Cambridge Mummy on… Cambridgeshire County Council School Admissions

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/education/parents/admission/apply2012/

There we have it. That big blue button and the url we needed this morning. To find out that W, our littlest has gotten into the same primary school as his brother, E. Big deal for Lovely Bloke, as we’re out of catchment and therefore fifth in six categories of admission. E was Happy. I was Happy. Lovely Bloke was Happy. W however, was Unhappy. “My am not not not going to big school. My am staying at Sunnyside…” was the general gist of it. At least we’ve got several months to sell the idea in to him…

Lovely Bloke is still unwell, (but well enough to lay on the sofa watching Super Hero Squad with W), so I did the school run. And went to the school’s office to accept W’s school place on his behalf. It was very exciting. Well. Kind of. And then I saw the Head teacher and told her how happy we were to be in that position. How good it was to have both our monkey’s at her school. That we don’t give a rats bottom about the OFSTED report last week, putting the school in special measures.

Because E’s class got a good report, and because the problems up the school needed addressing. And also, because My Good Friend, Dr AKT informs me that it’s great, because we get lots of additional funding for the year that we’re in it – staff, resources – you name it, we get it.

So there we have it. A big day in our Weston Family. We’re in the school that we wanted, for both our sons. And life is good. There’s the usual family bickering going on right now. Lots of work stuff, which is great, but means lots of extra work and brain power from me and a husband who is still mid transformation into a future Men’s Health cover star. Now. If I could find some time to get back on my Biggest Loser wagon myself, we’d be set. Extra 12 hours in the day anyone?

Cambridge Mummy on… baking muffins

Check me out – mother of the year alert. I have baked muffins with my boys this afternoon.

Here’s the kit before I started:

How much money do you think I spent in John Lewis for today's project? ;)

And here’s the final result – yes, they are star shaped pineapple, raisin, carrot and chocolate chip muffins :)

[ahem.bum.etc. can't get the image to load. will come back to this....]

But here’s what baking muffins actually means – going to John Lewis, purchasing silicone cake cakes in the shape of a star and some brightly coloured circle silicone cases. Doing all the prep for the baking muffins project myself. Weighing it all out myself. Putting it all together and then spooning it out under instruction from E and W. Then they contribute on a practical level – they put a chocolate chip on the top of each muffin. I then clean it all up whilst they go and play. And to add final insult to injury, W refuses to try one and E has one bite, rejects it and says “but I did have a go mummy and like you say, it’s good to try things, isn’t it?”

I figured that this would be a good thing to share on my blog, because I’m sure that there’s plenty of other mums out there who start with good intentions of doing lovely projects with their children that then turn into something that’s not quite the picturesque thing you’d thought of…

It’s not just me this happens to, is it?

Cambridge Mummy on Mummy’s Day

Today is a day for Mummies. I’ve had quite a nice day really. Got to go back to bed, after getting up at 7am with littlest. But it was interspersed with littlest and biggest coming to show me the bookmarks they were making me for Mummy’s day. I think it was a *subtle* strategy on Lovely Bloke’s part… Anyway, whatever today has or hasn’t been, is what it is. It’s perfect. Because our boys are here. I’m going to the funeral of biggest’s friend tomorrow. He wasn’t even quite 5 years old yet. So it’s a big thing. He literally went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up the next day. I won’t go into it any more than that, as this is my blog, not E’s and although he’s only 5, I don’t think it’s fair somehow to write about this. Funny, as I’m happy to share pretty much anything else.

So today, even if you’ve had a box of chocolates where you can’t eat 8 of the 11 in them, like me, please try to appreciate your family and what you have. I don’t know any way to write it that’s not patronising, but wanted to put it out there. I’ll be finishing today with a couple of loads of washing, to help Lovely Bloke who is snowed under at the moment and getting an early night so I can be uber productive tomorrow morning….

x

Cambridge Mummy on… the irony of the last post and this post…

I was so chuffed to get listed by Sainsbury’s and now I’m all behind with my good intentions for blogging more because I’m in San Francisco. It’s nuts but in a brilliant way – I’m working really hard for work. My brain is fried and fired up all at the same time. I’m inspired and at the same time, reassured that my instinct – my learning and my thoughts for my business for the future are all on track. But of course there’s still so much to do.

The reason I’m writing this blog post is that I want to document how thrilled I am to have met a really smart, savvy and strong group of women this last week. I don’t know what I expected of them. I’m a little younger than them (can’t say how much or I will be in trouble) but it needs noting because I wonder if it’s their additional life experience that gives them their confidence, their attitude to the businesses they run. Maybe they’ve evolved into it. As a woman in business I find it difficult to have confrontation because I don’t want to come across as being upset or upsetting anyone. But you can’t make everyone happy, all of the time. So today, when someone sent me an email, I used the things I’ve learnt this week, replying factually. And being strong in my sense of self belief, of purpose.

Here’s one photo of the fabulous women I’ve met this week :)

I really hope that when I get home I can apply this positively to my family life and to supporting Lovely Bloke who deserves all the support I can give him whilst he works hard to keep us all on track, in the right place at the right time and in clean clothes, as well as feeding us, teaching E numbers and doing writing practise, all the clubs and so much more that I’m not really aware of.

I sometimes feel that I blog schizophrenically, you know? Because I’m either on top of the world, or down in the dumps that I’m not able to be 100% wonder-woman, night and day. But this trip, even though it’s been for work, has given me a whole new sense of who I am in my world, what I want my world to be and how I can make it happen for myself and my family. Who I love more than I knew it was possible to. Who I can’t wait to see in 48 hours time x

Cambridge Mummy on… Being listed by Sainsbury’s !!!!

So, I could pretend to be all calm and collected. But I’m so not. Just got an email from Sainsbury’s to say that I’d been picked for their Familypreneur list of bloggers to check out. And I was listed second, only to Helen Lindop – a good friend in business, who I sadly don’t know well enough socially because we are both always working ourselves silly to get work done in our businesses! Hopefully we’ll find projects to team up on in the future, so I couldn’t be more pleased that Business plus Baby is listed first :))

So, if you’ve found me through Sainsbury’s, or my unashamed promotion of our coming second in this list – HELLO and welcome. I’m just getting it all sorted out still on here, because we are working so hard for clients and this isn’t a big promotional thing for me. If you want to know about the businesses I’ve founded and own, check out my about Liz Weston page . If not, it’s just lovely that you’ve found me.

Because I’m so chuffed with this, please leave a comment with your name and what you wanted to be when you became a “grown up” below and I’ll do a random draw to send someone lots of smellies in the post as a prize. Figured it would be nice to share the love on this Freezing Friday afternoon!!

x

PS. Competition question picked because I wanted to be a HGV driver when I “grew up” but apparently that wasn’t a proper job, so I had to say I wanted to be an RE teacher. Ahem. Which one do you think sounds more like *me* :)

The Cambridge Mummy blog on…. car insurance

Please note that this a post that’s brought to you by so please check our disclosure policy. The mere thought of paying for the boys to be insured on our cars terrifies me as I’ve got to pay my own car insurance this week and it’s gone up a bit *ahem* since I wrote off a car three years ago. But anyway, more about that later…

As most parents of growing children know, one of the largest adjustments of parenthood is the changing ways in which you need to care for your children. As your kids grow older and gain more experience in the world, they become more capable of caring for themselves in basic ways, but still need guidance in certain aspects of life. Sometimes, this can lead to changes and necessities that parents may never really think to see coming. For example, many parents do not fully consider how many things will change when their kids begin driving.

Obviously, there are basic concerns with the safety and responsibilities of driving, where your children are concerned. You will certainly be prepared to teach your kids how to drive, and to instruct them on the rules of the road, and how to drive cautiously and defensively. Furthermore, you are probably prepared to impose specific rules on your kids, such as distance limitations or restrictions on how many people you want them driving away. But all of this is about safety ‚Äì you also need to be prepared for the financial commitments involved in starting your kids off on the road. For example, will you be buying your kids cars, or handing a used car down to them? And, more importantly, how are you planning on insuring your child’s car?

As you certainly know from your own experiences, car insurance is extremely necessary from both a safety and a financial perspective. Of course you want to hope for the best, and hopefully you will never have to go through the ordeal of your child being involved in any sort of accident or road-related mishap. However, if a situation like this does arise, you will certainly want to have been sure that your child’s vehicle was properly, and thoroughly insured. This is why you may want to look into a well-respected insurance company like Aviva, which can help you to figure out a good policy for your kids.

Initially, one of the most appealing aspects of the Aviva car insurance policies is the company‚ multicar insurance package, which is ideal for families adding additional cars and/or drivers. Essentially, a multicar insurance policy allows you to save both costs and hassle when you add a new vehicle, as it groups your existing vehicle and the new one into a single insurance package. This means that rather than having two separate policies to keep up with (as well as two different sets of paperwork to fill out every time there is an issue with either car), you will simply have a convenient insurance bundle that contains and protects both of your cars at the same time. Additionally, once you add the second vehicle you can have up to one third of its insurance price reduced.

Once you decide on your specific insurance policy, you will be all set with the convenient, thorough, and cost competitive services offered by Aviva. You will also gain immediate access to the extremely convenient online management of your insurance policy, which is something that not everybody is lucky enough to enjoy just yet. Until relatively recently, insurance policies were still managed in person, by mail and over the phone, so if you are only now updating or changing your insurance, you may benefit greatly from the simplicity of being able to adjust, update and change your policy online. Ultimately, however, with regard to what is most important, your coverage, and its ability to keep you and any drivers you may be managing safe and financially secure ‚ you will be placing your trust in an experienced and trustworthy insurance company with a history of helpful performance. There is no more appealing option, particularly if and when you are setting up your own kids
as new drivers!

Cambridge Mummy on Dear So and So… 18.2.2012

Dear New Friend
Thank you for asking me to be your friend. I agree, it is *very* weird to make new friendships as we get older, but it’s worth taking your time with this kind of thing, because life’s too short to hang out with people who are nothing less than fabulous, who encourage you and will make you feel good about yourself and your decisions in life. So I’m well chuffed that you asked me to be your friend!
x

Dear Headache
Seriously – do I not have enough to handle when I have PMT without you punishing me for caving in and mainlining chips and gravy with diet coke this week? A headache that’s not quite enough to make me take to my bed but has pounded all day today making me a grumpy cow who now, because I’ve been dozing on the sofa, can’t get to sleep. Do me a favour and jog on will you?
x

Dear New Shiny Red Trainers
I love you. I have spent a lot of money on you. Please do not get black bits around the front and DO NOT, allow the denim of my jeans to turn your white bits around the bottom a weird grey blue colour. I am going to San Francisco in March and I want you to look all spanky fabulously new until I go. I think you are so fab I’m going to put a photo of you in here. See :)
x

Cambridge Mummy with a newsflash – you *can* save money when pregnant / a new mum

This is not a sponsored post per se, but it is a post that I’ve gotten through one of our clients at Weston Communications. So I’ve got a vested interest in this working ;) But at the same time, I’m putting it on my blog because I want to share money saving offers with people who are pregnant, new mums or have friends who are…

Please go and sign up to Mum and Baby Online – a one stop shop – a place where you can sign up to information, coupons, vouchers, money saving deals and all sorts of great stuff from Pampers, Huggies, Hipp and Argos and more whose names I can’t remember, to get their newsletters and offers all sent to you, without having to sing up for them individually.

I have vivid memories, funny, hilarious and emotional memories of my time as a new mummy, with Mrs R, with us both with a little plastic bag – you know the one you get your pennies in from the bank – with voucher codes in them, planning our activities around them as new mums. It was a mission for us, to see what we could save in the course of a day by optimising our voucher efficiency. I am so happy just thinking back to that point. It’s makes me feel mushy inside. So if nothing else, sign up to Mum and Baby Online, get your free offers, codes, discounts, coupons and money saving freebies and have fun with other women like I did with Mrs R and our babies x

And on another matter altogether, what’s the best deal that you’ve seen for pregnancy or new families recently? It’s good to share!