Because it isn’t just the playing with it that captivates her. The story does it too. It’s irresistible, a story of friendship in the most unlikely places, of loss and of redemption, if that doesn’t sound too grand for a picture book aimed at two, three or four year olds. And much as she enjoys the playing, the page she returns to time after time is the one where the friends find each other and share a big hug.

And to be honest, you can’t go far wrong with that. At the moment, the penguin is our bedtime companion, and I’m quite happy with that.

Disclosure we were fortunate to be supplied this free for review.

For my smartphone that is letting me quietly blog next to the restless baby, shop I don’t have to sneak away and risk disturbing her.

For the camping reading light that dp bought for my birthday so I can lie here and read when I’m done blogging.

For the nightlight that will keep her company when I do wander off to get a drink.

Oh yes, technology is good.

I want to host a carnival of differences. I’d like your posts and stories about disability, mental health, life with (or indeed without) benefits. Your personal stories about your problems, triumphs, highs and lows to share with my readers.

I’d very much like if we could make this a shared carnival – by which I mean that I’d like to send out the formatted links for you all to add to the end of your posts, so that ppl can hop through it all from wherever they find it, giving us all much more chance to publicise it. The only caveat I’d give is that this is a family friendly blog, so I don’t swear on it, and if your post contains strong language I’d like to be able to mention that in the link.

Is this something that anyone would be up for joining in with? I’d like to publish Thurs 16th so I’d need posts by next Tues 14th.

Please, this is our chance to win hearts and minds, and show what effect the wrb is likely to have on individuals, families and children. I have readers who don’t know what Disability Living allowance is, or why it matters, and I’d like to shine a light on that, but from a personal point of view. If you’re up for the challenge, please take a moment and drop me a line with a post. You can contact me through the comment form below or via my contact form. I’m also on twitter (often!) as liveotherwise, and can accept posts via tweets.

I picked up a conversation about this book on twitter last week and was intrigued by the title. And then very grateful to be sent a copy for review. I was still so intrigued that I read it over the weekend, and had a few twitter conversations about it along the way.

It’s written in an observational or anecdotal style, but peppered with references to scholarly articles and research. The author is an American living in Paris with her British husband, and along the way, studying the differences between the parenting that she sees around her, and the parenting that she inherited and sees in her Anglophone friends and relatives.

There are many thought provoking differences. Some of them leapt out at me – particularly the idea that French babies sleep through the night from around 2 months old. I’ve never had a child sleep through from anything like that young, and the prospect of another couple of years of broken nights stretching ahead of me is depressing me horribly. So how is this achieved and is it anything I can emulate?

It appears that the process is one of leaving the baby to self soothe from around 2 months. French parents, it would seem, observe their children and their rhythms, and are aware that babies disturb every couple of hours, but if they are left to it, will soothe themselves back to sleep without assistance.

This however, contradicts everything I know about how you maintain a good breastfeeding relationship – as I understand it those middle of the night feeds are very important for building supply. Which leads to a second point – apparently breastfeeding isn’t big in Paris. I can’t find stats for this online, but it’s stated in the book that French women just aren’t hung up on it – they see formula as just as good in the developed world as breastmilk, and can’t quite see why someone would beat themselves up over it.

I’d like to look into this further. There are things about French parenting that sound like a fantastic idea – not least the suggestion that French children eat proper food pretty much from scratch. I can see how this is achieved – Smallest has a far wider range of acceptable foods simply by having been fed pretty much whatever we were eating, and from sitting up at the table with us from early on. I’ve never seen her throwing food either – she managed to knock her bowl off the table a couple of nights ago and it’s the first time I can recall her doing so pretty much ever.

All in all, I found this an absolutely fascinating recounting of our nearest neighbours and how they parent – with some tips that I’ll be considering further, but I’d also like to research some of the counterpoints further. I’d love a sleeping baby, but not if it jeopardises breastfeeding. As far as I’m concerned, that’s always been my parenting line in the sand.

I managed to get her back to sleep by cuddling her, but that meant she was lying on my arm, so I couldn’t get comfortable again, so even though I spent another hour in bed, it wasn’t good for me. So I hobbled miserably around the house all morning, and vacillated over a nap or a shower but got interrupted by the toddler while heading for bed, so in the end I did neither, got dressed and went into town.

Against all expectations, the walk in the bracing (ok, somewhat below freezing) wind seemed to sort my hip out and I got back in time to do yet more washing up and washing and then make popcorn for Family Film Night.

So we watched a film and then we had tea, and now I’m trying to chivvy the children into bed.

Just a normal Saturday really.

Shame? I don’t get it. I view getting something with a yellow sticker on as an achievement. So I’ve been watching the 2lb christmas cakes with a best before date of Jan 31st like a hawk, and when their original yellow stickers of half price were halved again, I had two of them. Come on, fruitcake that is going to go off within a month? I think not. This stuff lasts forever, not that it’s going to get a chance in this house. We’re half way through the first one already – I knew I should have had more than two. I assume as they are past best before date the supermarket will have chucked them all out now Waste of good food, but that isn’t what this rant is about.

Is it really shameful to try to get something on the cheap? Like many other families at the moment, we’re watching our pennies. So apart from the things which I *have* to buy, my first port of call in any supermarket visit is the reduced section. So we had rice pudding made with gold top milk on Tuesday night – the milk was reduced to 64p for a litre, which made just about enough wonderfully creamy rice pudding to satisfy my entire family and tasted way better than the best tinned brand, which would have cost way more.

Was that a triumph or should I be hanging my head and not mentioning it? Is it because it’s food – I regularly see ppl recount sale triumphs for other items.

Whatever it’s about I don’t get it – anyone care to explain?

For the Thursday evening I chose Blossom maternity jeans (supplied free for review) teamed with a slightly dressy nursing top from Mama Feels Good that works very well as maternity garb.

(You’re going to have to cope without pictures of me I’m afraid, I completely forgot to take any!) The jeans I have are grey and ever so soft, and a cut above the usual maternity jeans I’ve got. They make me feel dressed up and smart, though I do confess that at this stage of pregnancy they are beginning to struggle to stay in place if I do anything like walking any distance. By over 7 months though, it probably is time to be thinking of over the bump bands. I like them enough that I soldier on through this – or just wear them when I’m not going to be all that active

On Friday I pushed the boat out and wore a dress! Again, it’s a dual purpose maternity/ nursing dress, this time from Jojomamanbebe Mine is a burgundy, which doesn’t seem to be listed on the site, unless it’s actually grape. I bought it for the ThreeUK mum blogger event last year and it’s stood me in good stead, travels well, and I’ll get more wear out of it later this year when I’m nursing again.

So there you go, two days in a row when I got all dressed up. Enjoy – it doesn’t happen very often!

I could go into a long and impassioned blogpost about how I perceive the rights and wrongs of this, blind you with arithmetic as the government is doing, but I think what is needed is quick bullet points and even quicker action.

What’s on the line:
They’ve time limited financial support for ppl with cancer. That’s something that could happen to any of us. And the new proposals imply that you wouldn’t be able to apply for some benefits until 6 months after your illness begins. Macmillan responded on this a year ago, as far as I can tell the government didn’t listen. So you could be having chemo and receive no support after being assessed fit for work. Sound OK?

The same time limiting applies to ppl with mental health issues. The government allowed a year. Lords pushed it up to two, but government are threatening to reduce it back again. This is another thing that can happen in any family. Will you support Mind?

That benefits cap. The government hasn’t compared like with like – the average salary that they’ve quoted could attract some of the very benefits that they are trying to cap. And as for saying that removing child benefit from the cap would push the benefits received up to 50,000 – well, you’d need 34 children to achieve that. Good luck with that, you world record breakers, you! And the cap is addressing a problem that doesn’t really exist – it isn’t the ppl on benefits that receive a huge slice of that money, it’s landlords charging exorbitant rents. Sound fair to you? Read around on it.

Disability living allowance. The budget is being cut by 20% on an in work benefit that currently has a fraud rate of 0.5%. So at the moment we deem those ppl disabled enough to require assistance – somehow they are becoming less disabled? I doubt it. It needs more careful consideration, and the government is just steam rollering these changes through. It could be any of us tomorrow – all it takes is an accident.

Take Action:
If any of these issues spur you on to take action, there are a couple of quick and easy things you can do.

You can sign @patspetition it needs 100,000 signatures for them to take notice. That’s not a lot, and it’s at 27000 already. But can we reach the target in a day? That’s more of a challenge, but I believe it’s doable. Ppl signed to get Hester to give up his bonus, didn’t they?

Email your MP to support the Lords Amendments. You can use Write to them or the form on Suey2y‘s blog.

Tweet in support of #spartacusreport and @patspetition Raise awareness, spread the word.

Want more information before you decide what to do? There’s a huge number of blogposts out there about all this. Some are here on LoveAllBlogs. You could google #spartacusreport and see what else you turn up – there’s huge amounts of material, personal stories out there on blogs.

Please, please, don’t let this moment pass. Please take action.

I’ve done a lot of craft through the years with Big. We’ve done first hama, midi hama, knitting, sewing, used bead looms and knitting looms, tried out origami and paper making (messy and the results really aren’t that good). She can crochet, and use a sewing machine – she’s basically very proficient.

With Small it isn’t so straightforward. He’s done a few rows of knitting, spread over several years, and some hama beading a while back, he quite likes Fimo, but that’s his lot. A few weeks back at our regular history etc meetup he was offered sewing and you’d have thought we’d offered him poison. He certainly didn’t do any of the hand embroidery that Big is slowly getting in to – turns out her cross stitch Christmas present really was appreciated, phew.

So what do you do with boys? I’m stumped. It’s not that I haven’t offered him the opportunities I’ve offered Big – I have. He just isn’t interested in this kind of crafty stuff. Is it because it’s seen as traditionally more female? I don’t think so. I tried to win him over with stories of fishermen knitting their Aran sweaters, although when I researched this, I discovered that most of it seems to be a myth

I explained that many of the men around him are perfectly capable with a needle and thread, and had the able assistance of two other boys demonstrating this – he still wasn’t impressed. I’m not sure what to do – the type of dexterity required for many of the crafts eludes him, which could be part of the problem, but at the same time, it would be excellent if I could get him doing them, as he could do with building up the strength in his wrists and hands anyway.

All suggestions greatfully accepted. Am I just approaching it the wrong way with him? Is there a fabulous craft out there that will win over his heart?

I read the forbes article on the #twitterblackout, and thought, yes, censorship is bad, must help send a message to twitter. So I blogged a quick mention, tweeted a couple of times, and then shut myself down. Twitching.

This morning, I couldn’t resist a peek, though I didn’t tweet. I did see a couple of ppl share a new perspective, thinking that the new policy is actually good for activists as it’s completely transparent and hidden tweets are only hidden within the originating country.

Hm, I’m still not sure. And overall I decided that if I’m so addicted to twitter the idea of a day off sets me twitching (and peeking from behind the curtains) a day off is precisely what I need. So I’m still (sort of) supporting the #twitterblackout – at the very least it raises awareness of the issues, and discussion is good. I’m not ignoring you on there today – I’m testing my self control

In completely unrelated news, I seem to have been quite productive so far today. It’s not even lunchtime and I’m dressed, showered, slathered in the lovely new Palmers massage lotion for stretch marks I was given yesterday (apparently I smell nice, says Big, and I certainly feel nicely pampered ), I’ve breakfasted, done a load of washing and spread it to dry around the house, and I’m fighting again with the loan iphone trying to recover the photos and videos I took so I can send it back.

Honestly, I know that ppl love these devices – I can’t see why. I’ve tried syncing the thing and I can’t see where in itunes it hides the pics or vids, if it does pull them off at all. I’m now trying to clear them off using the Windows Scanner and Camera thingummy as recommended on apple’s site, and that isn’t working either. So far it’s been at it over 40 minutes and has managed to copy across 6 items out of 35. I have *never* had any problems getting things of any of the Nokia or Android phones I’ve reviewed or used.

As well as that, I’ve sorted out a voucher from topcashback so that I can order a couple of things from Amazon (a book for Big to review so that she can enter a reviewing competition, and a replacement relaxation CD for me to listen to in the hope I can boost my self hypnosis skills before birth). I love topcashback. They’ve put their referral fees up to £10, so if you join through my link I get £10 bonus when you’ve earned £5 (I think. Don’t know whether they’ve put that threshold up along with the referral bonus and can’t seem to find that info.) and you get an extra 5% on payout if you take it in Amazon vouchers. I use it against things like train tickets via the trainline, and spending at Baker Ross all mounts up!

And that’s about it for the day so far. Next task is to do some tidying and gather together all the books we’ve got for Our Year in Books so far (a disturbing amount. But there are 4 of us taking part.) And then I need to think about food and shopping, and maybe a lie down with my feet up at some stage. (And a book. Or three. As I seem to have a slightly ridiculous stash!)

And I want to work through my emails and draw myself up a task list – have started that a bit, and maybe take some more bits down to the charity shop, and perhaps work on several blog posts for several blogs, and I’d love to do some crafting and…

aren’t there a lot of hours in the day without twitter?

It was a fascinating experience. Great to meet with ppl I only knew online previously, good to catch up with a few ppl I had met before. But also fascinating to discover how many brands think so highly of bloggers that they’ll turn out to meet a handful of us.

Made me think carefully about what I’m doing. Expect more on that very soon…

More links to be added tomorrow, am far too tired to load up a real computer that would make adding them easy!

Oh, and don’t expect to see me on twitter tomorrow. (Unless of course I wake up and forget.) I’ll be joining the #twitterblackout against censorship. Yes, I’m twitching already… I may live blog the day instead.

But tired.  Trains will do that to you it seems.

I’m so tired of this. So tired of knowing more about the research on this than my midwife does. This is my fourth time approaching birth, though really only the third time of being this clued up. And each time I’ve had to educate another midwifery team.

It’s not difficult. It’s not rocket science. The research is available. It’s even part of the gold standard advised in this country that Hb levels aren’t the best way of judging anaemia, instead you should check Mcv (whatever that may be). I’m not anaemic. My blood has diluted nicely to support the placenta and baby, and I’m probably about ideal.

We will discount the weight gain though, as that does seem a little excessive.

I didn’t need this right now. Not that I’m sure anyone ever does.

*headdesk*. There’s a freedom of information request in already to get to the bottom of this one, and the education select committee have requested questions for Mr Gove be tweeted at them with the hashtag #askGove I’ve sent one in asking for clarification, and I’ve seen others on similar themes. Do feel free to aim them at Graham Stuart though, the more the merrier.

But let’s take a detailed look at the letter.

I don�t think any specific statute has been identified as yet, but Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education has made it clear that he intends to introduce a requirement whereby home educated children will be linked to a school and their academic achievement will contribute to the schools results. Rightly or wrongly I believe that will mean an assessment based on exam results.

Yes, well. Let’s table that one until we get an answer from Mr Gove. But we’ll keep watching. We are always watching you.

I do agree with you that children�s needs can and should be met in different ways. But it is also important that appropriate measures are in place to ensure proper safeguarding. Sadly nobody actually knows the full extent of home education, but we do know that many more than the 823 children of which we are aware, are educated outside of traditional settings. Clearly there are many very sincere families that make considered decisions in the best interests of their children and that is to be welcomed. However, I am concerned that all children are given opportunity through education. Kent County Council will have to adhere to policy as laid down by Government but I can assure you that we fundamentally believe in a mixed economy of education provision of which home education is a contributor. The issue though has to be ensuring that an individual child�s needs are appropriately met and the child is adequately safeguarded. May I remind you that for many children from not just in Kent, that they are safest when they are at school.

Aargh!

It is the parent’s responsibility to ensure suitable (not just adequate!) education. It’s very lovely to think that this Kent cc employee is so caring about all children, but it’s completely irrelevant. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, parents are supposed to be trusted. And home education is *not* a safeguarding issue. Research done by home educators during the Badman report saga clearly showed that the risk to home educated children is half that for children in school. We won’t even mention the children who suffer from bullying and abuse in school, because obviously they are still safer there. (Oh, I did mention it. Ah well.)

The emphasis on educational attainment being measured through exam success does not in my opinion properly reflect the skills and abilities of all our children. Kent has had a policy of encouraging a vocational curriculum for those where such skills are more appropriate and we will continue with that.

That’s nice. It would be even nicer if it had a policy of supporting the choices of the children concerned regardless, but I guess that would be too much to ask for.

I am not and nor is KCC anti home education, we are increasing three fold the resources that we commit to supporting home educated children, but a major part of that is that we do need to know where all these children are and then ensure that they receive an appropriate education that meets their needs and helps to prepare them for adulthood.

No, no and thrice no. This is not the council’s role, there are no legal requirements that state this, the law requires a suitable education, not an appropriate education and it’s all the parent’s responsibility. Gah. Why is this so difficult for LAs to understand?

I am quite sure that any visit to yourself would demonstrate clearly the benefits of home education. It is the one to two thousand children who are outside of traditional settings and unknown to the authorities that concern me.

I love this. I call it the divide and conquer quote. Don’t worry, it isn’t home educators like *you* that we’re worried about. It’s all the other ones.

When will LAs learn to stay within the law – it’s really quite clear. When will they accept that the education and safeguarding of children is primarily a parental responsibility? When will they stop casting these aspersions of hidden abuse against families who are going about their lawful business, just getting on with their lives?

Home education is not a safeguarding issue. I am not neglecting or abusing my children, and I’d thank a variety of council employees around the country if they’d stop assuming I am.

Our grey bin (landfill waste) is collected fortnightly, and it is generally between a third and half full. I’d guess that’s up to 7 of our kitchen bin loads and includes things like the disposable nappy that’s worn overnight (struggled with cloth overnight this time around), the odd bit of clingfilm, though generally we use containers with lids, non recyclable plastic like lids of bacon packs, sausage wrappers, cereal bags etc, then there’s bathroom waste like old toothbrushes, cotton buds, the pump bit of lotion or conditioner bottles. From other rooms around the house there will be junk mail offerings – CDs or stickers, and window envelopes that can’t be recycled. Oh, and I forgot my biggest kitchen bugbear – tetrapaks. We go through lots of fruit juice, so there’s probably at least one tetrapak a day, also things like passata come in it.

Where we lived before we came here, you could recycle tetrapaks. I think the first part of my personal challenge ought to be to find out if there is anywhere here where I can recycle them, or get an alternative product. The difficulty is with cost – I know of organic alternatives of concentrated fruit juice, I used to buy them from an organic coop place in Sheffield, but they are expensive, and to be frank about it all, we’re not precisely rolling in cash atm. Right now I bulk buy fruit juice from Lidl, and that’s going to be difficult to beat in price.

Food (or drink) for thought, anyway. There are a number of other ppl taking part in the challenge too, including Tim from Bringing up Charlie, Amy in New York, Donna from Beating Limitations and Kate, the Business Plumber.

I’d really rather not claim benefits. I’m pretty sure over the years I haven’t claimed half of what I was entitled to (in legislative terms) – mainly because I didn’t feel I needed it at the time. Perhaps I should have done, I don’t know. Although HMRC are happy to go back years in claiming tax from individuals, it’s usually only months they’ll backdate benefits, so what’s done is done.

But what I don’t like atm is this drift towards thinking that ppl in need of benefits are somehow unworthy. This is seen in the attitudes perpetuated towards disabilities benefits claimants by the media and the government. I’m sure some of it is down to ignorance, but I can’t help feeling that for some of the politicians involved, it’s wilful ignorance.

A quote this week from Ian Duncan Smith, architect of the Welfare Reform Bill that gave rise to the Spartacus report in response.

Asked if the cap was really a distraction from the changes to disability benefits, ESA and housing benefits, from which people were suffering, he said: “But they’re not suffering. The point about this is that what makes you suffer is the state that plunges you into dependency on the state. It does two things, it means bigger bills for taxpayers and it means your life and your children’s lives will be blighted by being dependent on me, the secretary of state, to give you the money to live”

Ppl aren’t suffering. Mr Duncan Smith, that is disingenuous in the extreme. Ppl are suffering extremes of anguish, looking into a future that holds little support or care for those who need it most. Ppl are suffering from assessments done by uncaring individuals just ticking boxes on a form, and getting it horribly wrong far too often.

Parents are suffering wondering how they are going to fund the extras their children need if DLA is removed from them, and it looks very much as if in many cases it will be.

If you want to read individual stories, the Where’s The Benefit blog is eloquent in its response to many of these issues. Oh, and there’s a personal description of suffering from Sue Marsh (suey2y) on her blog – but I suppose that doesn’t count anyway, as if she’d just shut up and let the government done what it knows is best for her, she wouldn’t be in hospital right now, exhausted from campaigning for the rights of disabled ppl.

You know, most of us pay tax. It isn’t the government’s money, it’s ours. And it annoys me hugely that I get so little say in what it is spent on. I would far rather support disabled ppl to have some independence than I would buy the queen a yacht. All power to her for staying the course so well, but no, I don’t want to chip in. How about taking the hat round to all the companies who are avoiding tax burdens in this country instead? And maybe with the rest of the change, we could shelve this idea to trim 20% off the budget for disabilities benefits that are already creaking at the seams.

Please, if you feel the slightest bit interested in anything I’ve said above, feel free to blog or tweet about it yourself. Do the research. Read the spartacusreport. Put yourself in the shoes (or chairs) of those who are being so unfairly maligned. I don’t think any of these ppl asked to be disabled, and few of them are living it up on our cash. In our advanced, enlightened society, surely care for those who need us is the only moral way to behave?

I’m still in denial about March. Still in denial that our not really all that small family is suddenly going to be a large family, that we won’t fit in our comfortable family saloon any more, that our house is straining at the seams already and is soon going to be trembling.

Humph. One step at a time. Bedroom rearranging is on the cards. Furniture shopping. Probably just as well there isn’t an IKEA anywhere handy as I’d be there with my credit card, beating it up again. I fancy something nice this time, maybe something lovely from somewhere like thefurnituremarket.co.uk/french_furniture although probably what’s going to happen is our non existent budget will have to be spent on bunk beds for the kids in order to fit three of them into one room until we work out a way to finance the extension we’re going to have to have. Somehow I don’t think the credit card will cover that one!

Oh, I have such plans. I never intended to have four children, but I’m happy with the way things are working out. As the eldest of four myself I know how tough it can be, but mine are going to be so spread out that we should be able to cushion most of the blows. So it’s going to be tough for a couple of years, yeah, but we’ll get through that, and then I’ll have this perfect family, home, life…

I’ve a feeling I’m going to be spending even more time than usual on Money Saving Expert forum. I’m already squeezing the pounds and the pennies – hand me downs, real nappies, charity shops, homemade food from real ingredients. All these things make money go much further, and also make you value your time and effort much more. It helps that I’m at home with the kids – they are involved in day to day life. Home education is a budget life style for us, although we splash out on a couple of things – National Trust and English Heritage memberships are great ways of running cost effective trips out. Holidays (like this one) are off peak and self catering – I’ve got some great ideas for blog articles around them actually, I hope you’ll bear with me.

Turns out that spending your hours watching a toddler splash around the pool can be pretty good for your creativity, as well as your poor abused pregnant back!