The Mule

I've been asked by fellow mummy blogger Mummy Dichotomy to join up with a campaign to raise awareness of a petition from Save the Children.  In January Save the Children launched the campaign No Child Born to Die.   Every year 8 million children under five die from illnesses we know how to treat or prevent, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.   Save The Children is focusing on the provision of vaccinations and healthcare workers.  On 13th June London is hosting a global vaccination summit where David Cameron and other world leaders will look at the issue of getting vaccines to the poorest children in the world. These will be life changing decisions for millions of children. Save The Children aims to make as much noise as possible to ensure the funding shortfall for vacc inations (4.7 billion) is met by all the donor countries. If this funding gap is met the vaccines that could then be provided would save the lives of millions of children. You can ...

There were quite a few things I didn't know about having children, before I had children.  I didn't know you had to relinquish sleep, getting plastered, and using the loo alone for the foreseeable future.  I didn't know that parenting involved such high levels of patience, guilt and housework.  And I didn't know that my children's birthdays, especially their first birthdays, would be a day that was also for me, a day to get misty eyed as I remembered the last hours I held them tight within my body, and a time for turning over and over in my mind the story, from the first stirrings of labour to the moment of their birth.  Another thing I didn't know before I had children is that giving birth can be one of the most incredible, exciting and empowering experiences of your life.  During my first pregnancy I was filled with fear, absolutely dreading the act of bringing my child into the world, which to me seemed impos...

My baby girl is one later this week.  We are still nursing, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and two or three times, sometimes more, sometimes less, during the day.  And despite the fact that she was a great sleeper for her first few months, right now she wakes up every few hours in the night and I nurse her back to sleep. Even though she will soon be walking, I don't have any plans to stop breastfeeding.  I know this puts me in a massive statistical minority, and that this choice is not for everyone.  However, for those of you who might be considering continuing to breastfeed your baby past six months, or even longer, here are my top ten reasons to keep your nursing bra when all around you others are losing theirs... It's Normal - it doesn't always feel this way, as it's unusual to see anyone breastfeeding a newborn in our culture, let alone a toddler.  But start asking around and you'll be surprised how many mothers...

" Mum-Mee ", comes the voice of the Automatic Question Generator in the back seat of the car, "Who makes water?"  "Well darling", I reply, trying to give myself an air of Professor Brian Cox but probably sounding a bit more like Winnie the Pooh, "Nobody makes water.  Water just IS".  " What ?", says the AQG, totally dissatisfied with my flaky answer. "Weeell", I stumble on, "Water just exists , some things just exist, water is...it's...it's...it's...one of the Elements ".  I feel pretty pleased with myself for imparting this nugget of science, until my partner breaks it to me later that day that my theory has been abandoned for several hundred years and belongs in a dusty vault labelled 'Classical Thought and Medieval Alchemy'.   Living with a three year old, the questions are constant, and I have to say, some of them are already pretty challenging to ethereal brained arty types like myself, w...

Us girls love a good ritual.  Go on, be honest, you enjoyed that wedding last week.  In fact, you like weddings in general, and anniversaries, and I've heard it said, and I think they might be right, that without women there would be no Christmas.  We like to create and participate in ceremony, to gather with friends and family to celebrate life, love, and the passage of time together.  Men can happily join in, but essentially, it's a girl thing. You'd think then, that there would be more woman centred rituals (or call them gatherings, parties, celebrations, rites of passage, whatever you feel comfortable with).  There are, however, many significant moments in a woman's life that are left unremarked upon by our particular culture.  From menstruation to menopause, our bodies do some mysterious and amazing things, and in many other far flung corners of the globe, these accomplishments are brought to light and celebrated in a variety of imaginative, touc...