If you’re anything like me you’ll be looking forward to the summer holidays with a sense of excitement and mild fear. Hurray you get to spend more time with your kids but, uh-oh! How on earth are you going to cope all summer now the Big Kids are everywhere and oh my days how are you going to afford it too?! I love looking through summer bucket lists and bored jar lists for ideas on what to do with my kids, but as they’re often aimed at older kids they’re not always that great for me, I can’t tell my preschooler to go read a book or write messages in invisible ink! With that in mind I thought I’d share some ideas for a summer bucket list for preschoolers, this isn’t possibly the one my kids would write (that’d include EuroDisney, Alton Towers and Legoland) but it does have loads of achievable but fun things to do with your kids. I’m sure there’s lots of them that you could do with older kids too and do feel free to leave your own ideas at the end – us parents have got to help each other!
Parenting
How to help your kid sleep when it’s still light outside
I love the summer. My kids love it too. What they don’t love though is going to bed during the summer, it’s still light, surely they should be outside playing, right?! No. Sorry kids but you need sleep and frankly Mummy needs a rest! Getting my kids to sleep at night has pretty much been my main objective over the last four years and during that time we’ve tried and tested a lot of ideas. At the moment though we seem to have hit on a few things that have really helped us to get both our kids (four years old and 18 months old) into bed and staying there until the morning, so these are my tips for how to help your kid sleep when it’s still light outside

Sleeping girl image via Shutterstock
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9 Ways to calm teething: for you and your baby
My second child teethed on and off for nearly a year before we saw any teeth arrive. It was fun! When I had my first child I honestly thought that kids babies teethed for a couple of weeks and then that was it. Yeah. I was totally wrong. Babies generally start teething at around six months, but for some it can be before four months and some kids are born with teeth. Knowing this much, second child around I decided to do whatever I could to help my baby and me get through the pain, so these are my top ways to calm teething, both for you and your baby.
Celebrating IWD 2014 – Interview With Rachel Goswell
I am so excited to be sharing this interview with Rachel Goswell today to celebrate International Women’s Day. Team Honk are running a blog prompt about inspiring women, Annie from Mammasaurus interviewed me (I’m still kind of in shock about that one to be honest) and I really wanted to take part too, I thought hard about women I know that inspire me and Rachel was my number one choice to interview. I was actually really nervous about asking her so I’m super pleased that she said yes!
For those who don’t know her, Rachel blogs over at An Exeter Mum, which is one of my favourite blogs. Her son has CHARGE Syndrome and Rachel has campaigned for the rights of deaf people and their families, she’s also a great gardener and keeps chickens. Rachel is also in Slowdive, a band that have recently reformed, very strange to read The Guardian late at night and see someone you know in there! This summer Slowdive will be playing at Festivals from Lattitude in the UK to ones in Barcelona, Paris, Norway and Chicago. She really is a rock and roll mama and I hope you enjoy learning more about her! …
Inappropriate Books To Read With A Toddler (and why I figure it’s ok)
I thought it would be a nice idea to write a post to celebrate World Book Day. At first I thought maybe I’d write something about my life as an independent bookseller, or why I really don’t mind Amazon. Then I thought maybe I should write about good, virtuous books to read with your kids. And then I thought no, everyone will be doing that, and besides, why not just be honest? We have a stupidly large amount of books for The Toddler but his favorites all make me cringe a tiny bit. So these are his favourite books right now. These are my Totally Inappropriate Books To Read With A Toddler, but hopefully by the end we’ll all agree it’s ok really? Hopefully?!?
Power Rangers Story Collection
We were given this book as a gift for The Toddler when his sister was born. He loves it. I love it. Really. I’ve learnt to embrace a love for the cheese of the Rangers, you kind of have to when you read it every night. Only one issue, this: …




