Parenting Practical Advice Archives - Page 2 of 2

November 28, 2019April 16, 2024

Best Book Series for 9 – 12 Year Old Girls To Read Now

(as Recommended by Girls!)

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Last weekend our family bit the bullet and went to another flea market (Flohmarkt, for those of you wanting to expand your German vocabulary 😉). No, not to buy anything, but to Sell! Sell! Sell! And we had definitely collected plenty of unwanted kids’ stuff to sell.

Sure we made some money. Not as much as we had fantasised about beforehand (bathtub full of banknotes, anyone?!?), but we actually did OK. Afterwards, we reloaded the car and brought the unsold stuff home again. Do you know what constituted the biggest pile of leftovers? Can you guess???

BOOKS!

I mean, we did sell quite a few, but we just had so many that the kids didn’t want anymore.

Our 3 children LOVE books. If we left the kids alone with no demands or expectations of homework, attending school, helping out with chores, speaking to another human or having a breeze of fresh air brush their sweet faces… well, I think they would probably just lie in bed and look at books all day. Do you know what the perfect word for them is? Bookworms!

The 2 girls have been begging for months to contribute towards my blog here, as a sort of “Stuff for Kids, by Kids” offering. And hey presto! I have finally got my eldest right here, helping me put together a list of highly-recommended, tried-and-tested book series. to give you some great reading ideas!

So, why wait?!? Read on to discover these compelling, page-turning, book series for girls aged 9 to 12 years, as recommended by my girl, who is (funnily enough) also aged between 9 and 12 years old 😉.

October 15, 2019November 22, 2021

How to Know Whether Your Child is Ready for Their Own Phone

Warning! Warning! We now have a young lady in her mid-tweens in the house! Our oldest “baby girl” is certainly a little girl no more. Our formerly-known-as-Miss-10 recently celebrated her 11^th birthday. Yay! Happy Birthday amazing, gorgeous girl! (I know you’ll be reading this 😉).

Birthday celebrations mean birthday party planning, right?!? And boy, did she have plans. A gaggle of girlfriends stayed over to dance, chatter, play games and feast on popcorn while watching a DVD. Apparently they even managed to find time for some shut-eye.

Apart from her big birthday party though, she had one other grand plan occupying her thoughts every waking moment: a mobile phone.

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Mobile phone, cell phone, Handy, expensive-addictive-glowing-screen-attention-sucking-vampire. Call it what you want. But that gadget was front and centre on her birthday wish list and she was darned certain she was going to get one. From us. Her parents. Her caregivers. Her guardians. The logical left-brain to her own excitable right-brain.

But what to do? The idea of giving her her own mobile phone had me feeling incredibly nervous and concerned and a thousand other emotions that all together made me feel, well, uncertain and a little uncomfortable.

Mobile phone. Cell Phone, Handy. Looks harmless enough, right?

I mean, how are we supposed to know whether now is the right time to give her a phone? How does anyone know when “the right time” is? Read on!

September 24, 2019June 26, 2021

The Art of Creating Special Memories

This week I am not going to dilly-dally around. I’m going to get straight into it. So… Who doesn’t believe in love? And romance? And beautiful gifts from your special someone?

This past weekend was Hubby’s and my wedding anniversary. Our 12^th to be exact. Which, whether you like it or not, we are just going to pat ourselves proudly on the back. Anyone who has ever been married knows that despite loving someone with all your heart, there are times when there can be other, not-so-poetic ways, to describe your feelings for this person. Marriage can be great. But it can also be hard work.

So when another years passes by and you can honour the fact that yes, you are still together, you are still in love with each other and you still want to stick by each other, it’s worth celebrating. Am I right?!?

So when we celebrated those 12 years together, it was the most magical, romantic, memorable day of the year. Or was it?….

**cue suspenseful music**

August 4, 2019November 11, 2021

6 Must-Haves for Road Trips with Kids (and How to Survive Them)

Hellooooo! It’s me! I am back in the land of Everything’s Famtastic after being AWOL these past 2 weeks. I do have a perfectly valid excuse: we were on our family summer holiday!

As alluded to a few weeks back in my list of super summer activities and “Bring on Summer Holidays!” I said that we were planning our summer holidays trip. We had such a famtastic time in Croatia! I can HIGHLY recommend a visit. All of the people we encountered were lovely, friendly, helpful… we had a new language to try out (“hvala!”)… the weather was sunny and hot… views are stunning… gorgeous beaches… icecream every day… What more could you want for a summer holiday?!?

Hubby and I knew that we had to prepare well for the trip. Nobody wants to have 3 kids whining “Are we there yet?” 30 minutes into the drive, right? Am I the only one who has ever fantasised about having one of those glass partitions installed in the family car? You know what I mean? Between the driver and the backseat passengers. Like, in fancy-pants limousines and such. After a few rounds of “Are we there yet?”, just press the magic button and the upwards gliding of a pane of soundproof glass is the last thing you’ll hear for the next hours 😉.

Oh OK, of course we would never actually DO that. But don’t pop my daydream bubble, alright?!?

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So, big trips with children call for military-precision planning. And plan is what we did. Today I’m here to help you out by sharing with you the items we packed for the kids (and us grown-ups) to make the journey as bearable, er, entertaining as possible.

June 30, 2019June 21, 2024

Mega List of 61 Super Summer Boredom Busters for Kids

school holidays, summer holidays, tips, parenting, kids, boredome busters

Woo hoo! Summer has really been showing off this past week in Germany (and much of Europe, actually)! We’ve had temps up in the high 30s (around 100F). Reminds me of being back in an Australian summer. How’s the weather been in your part of the world?

I am constantly being asked how I feel about the hot weather here, while many of my compatriots (well, not really, because I am not a German citizen so that word is technically not correct. But I can’t think of a better one… “fellow inhabitants of Germany” isn’t quite as catchy 😉). Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I am constantly being asked how I am coping with the weather while many of those around me seem to be flustered, sweaty and melting. FYI- I’m all good 😉.

These past weeks I have been celebrating some of the exciting things I love about spring and summer; like strawberry season and enjoying the outdoors. And yes, we are still eating our boundless strawberry products. Can’t get enough! *nom nom*.

Since summer holidays are a HUGE deal for kids at this time of year, what a great idea it would be if only there was a long list of fantastic things to do during the school holidays. No more “Mamaaaaa I’m so boooooooored!”. Right?!? Well, drumroll please…

April 28, 2019June 26, 2021

What to do When You’re Sick (and Why It’s So Important)

Hello everybody! Good to have you here! Many countries around the world celebrated Easter last weekend and most children have been home from school for a week or 2. Did you have a nice Easter? If you have children, have you all been busy enjoying the school holidays? Got any chocolate left? 😉

Our holidays have been pretty good. I wrote last week about (amongst other things) the almost non-stop entertainment our daughters were enjoying. What, between cooking classes and church groups and parties and sleepovers, I hardly saw them at all in the week leading up to Easter!

Our Easter weekend itself was lovely. Plenty of gloriously warm sun and blue skies, making the outdoor Easter egg hunt an urgent affair. Take too long to look for your eggs and you would have ended up with a basket of hot chocolate! We went a-visiting (to my mother-in-law) for a couple of days and then back home received our own visitors (from my Australian family) for a couple of days. A perfect weekend all round, if I do say so myself!

Remember how I had been fantasising about enjoying some good quality dark chocolate (which I did indeed receive 😉) and a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc? Yes? Just one stumbling block though…

April 21, 2019June 26, 2021

Hooray for School Holidays on a Budget

(Why You Should be Excited about School Holidays Too)

Hello everyone! Sorry that I was MIA last week. I was feeling out of sorts for a couple of days, with all sorts of weird aches and pains (ever had aches in your knuckles?!?) but kept on carrying on (as you do). And then I realised I had a fever. Urgh. But, here I am again, ready to regale you with more fun and wit!

How was your week? Did you try sewing those cute little baskets? Or maybe tried tidying your house some more? But way more exciting than any of those: Did you meet up with your friends any time this past week? Just the other week I posted about the health benefits of having regular contact with friends, remember? You see, it is practically a doctor’s prescription to go out and have fun, LOL.

Lucky for me, I followed my own advice and did indeed meet up with some girlfriends. As always it was lovely to see them. In the evening even (like real adults do 😉), sans-children! There is something heavenly about being able to relax, and speak openly and without interruption for a couple of hours with friends while chilling on the sofa. No, there was no alcohol (Remember, Lent!). But yes, there was chocolate 😉.

Not only that, but I also had the joy of meeting up with 2 other friends since then for dinner. It never rains but it pours, as they say! It can be months between going out with any of these ladies and then bam! Two dinners with girlfriends in two weeks. Love it!

Mmmm, let’s get back to chocolate…

April 14, 2019June 26, 2021

When the Mama is Sick

Hi Folks! I had been intending on writing a lovely post this week about the fun of school holidays. The problem is, that I am not having fun. I am sick. Fever, exhaustion, aches and all.

Hope you have had a great weekend wherever you are. See you next week! (Sorry)

February 24, 2019June 26, 2021

5 Ways to Deal with an Overwhelming Household

household, how-to, tips, stress less, housework

Do you have sometimes have days when you feel overwhelmed by life? By your household? By your kids? C’mon, you can be honest here! Raise your hand!

**raises hand**

Of course everyone has tough days. Anyone who denies ever having a rough day (or week, or perhaps month) is kidding themselves and fooling no one. Life throws us lots of opportunities. And sometimes life just throws lemons. (yeah yeah, we’ve all heard it before, make lemonade, yada yada).

Anyway… when life at home with kids, or a partner, or a barnyard full of animals, seems gruelling, repetitive, thankless, boring, frustrating, uncontrollable- shall I stop now?!- it can all seem a little, well, too much.

What can you do? The #1 thing to remember: You are not alone!

You are not the only one facing this crisis, this mood, this shitty day. Say it to yourself: “I am not alone”. Say it again. Say it a thousand times if you need to. Because it is true and you should believe it. What are the chances that