tattycrafts

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Randall Terry This quote has often been on my mind in my lifetime and a recent dining experience brought it to mind again. Over the last six months my social life has been mainly limited to spending time with my "mummy friends". Don't get me wrong,  I love this and love spending time with them.  We started off meeting in the same place quite frequently, well it was summer, the sun was shining and most of us could walk there. It was perfect. Then the weather got less fantastic, boredom set in and so began the hunt for "baby friendly" venues to devour cake. Not massively difficult normally,  but there is always at least three of us, with babies, prams etc.... It ain't that easy. I foolishly assumed that if a place has highchairs they will be welcoming. WELCOMING and able actually. Wrong! One of the first places we went to wasn't too bad. The warm and friendly delight of Clervaux. We had a...

One thing I've done since I was a teenager is colour my hair. That's still the case, but in my late twenties I started to play around with my look and started adding pink and purple and blue into my hair. Not huge amounts, just a few strands. But it didn't feel enough. Then in 2006 I received a diagnosis which completely changed my outlook on life. I stopped holding back and decided to just go for it. I dyed my whole head atomic pink. I loved it, but never felt comfortable with the attention it seemed to get. While I'm chatty and bubbly and will talk to anyone, I'm not massively confident and don't feel comfortable being the centre of attention. At work I found myself interacting with more senior staff members and I wanted to be taken seriously.  I never really believed people saw past the hair. Consequently, I gradually started toning things down. Looking at old photos recently I realised I really missed it. The hair made me feel like I was being true to ...

My family are always asking for photographs of my little one. Who can blame them for wanting pictures of such cuteness? I was recently given an opportunity by PicStick , to review their magnetic pictures.  That was a "Hell Yeah" and we quickly received details for ordering them. These magnetic pictures come as a sheet of nine and only cost £9.50 with free postage.  Pretty decent! It was really easy to order, simply upload nine pictures, then drag and drop onto the template. The hardest part is choosing which 9 pictures you want! Once you've done that you can edit the picture placements to suit, and TADAHHHH that's it. They arrived really quickly and I was surprised at the high quality and how easily they split into single magnets. The family members have all received them but we couldn't bear to give them all away so we have kept three. Now you too can have PicSticks and at a bargain price. Just enter the code TATTY25 for 25% discount (for the next...

I'm a huge fan of babywearing.  I currently have three different baby carriers, and love having different ways to carry my little one.  I love the feeling of having him close to me to snuggle, and we have such a laugh and a giggle together when we're walking along.   In the main the comments we receive are positive but very occasionally we get the odd negative comment from people who mistakenly believe it is dangerous to wear your baby. What I get really annoyed about is the media getting it wrong. The latest example is the BBC programme "In the club", which showed this scene... This particular baby carrier is not safe at all. In a bag sling, there is no safe way to position the baby. They have to lie lengthways and the sling curves them into a C-shape, pushing their chin into their neck and can restrict their airway. The design of this also means that any air they can breathe is re-circulated air. There have been deaths associated with this sling. Wearing yo...

Everyday of my life now I have to take responsibility for someone else.  He's on my mind in everything that I do,  whether he's with me or not. He's even on my mind as I cross the road, making me more careful and taking less risks in life. This week, we made one of the first of many decisions relating to his care and wellbeing. We chose his nursery for when I return to work. In some ways it was harder than I expected it to be.   When we first started looking into nurseries I had a list in my head of key criteria and thought it was as simple as that. As soon as we looked at the first one I realised there were so many things that I hadn't even thought about which were so important.  With every nursery we looked at, more and more things occurred to us. We eventually narrowed it down to two. We were left with two final questions. Which one did we feel he would be happiest at, and which one did we feel we could trust to keep him safe, and care for him in the same wa...